Tomorrow, April 6, 2010, André Néron will have been dead for 25 years.
In spite of the weight of his work on abelian varieties, I've only been able to ascertain the following information:
- His birth and death dates (born November 30, 1922)
- In 1943 he graduated from the École Normale. He got his doctorate in 1951 and his advisor was Châtelet (though not at any particular school, just somewhere in Paris according to German Wikipedia) and his only student was Colliot-Thélène at Orsay (shared with Swinnerton-Dyer)
- He was employed at Poitiers. It also seems that in 1953 when he was inducted into the Société Mathématique de France he was listed as being at Orsay. In years 59-60 he was at the IAS and in 1954 he was an invited speaker at the ICM in Amsterdam.
That's pretty much what I found. And all that does is hint that there's a really fantastic story in there!
What happened during the war?
How did he get back to mathematics?
Who else did he work with (not just publish papers with, MathSciNet suggests his only collaborators were Serge Lang and Pierre Samuel)?
Why so few students? Was he difficult to get along with or was it just a sign of the times?
Why did he die at age 62?
If you have any data or stories about him, please leave them here, one answer per.
Best Answer
In the Grothendieck-Serre correspondence, you can find some interesting quotes:
[GROTHENDIECK, OCTOBER 19, 1961]
"Je trouve que ce n'est pas malin de faire laïusser Néron sur lui-même: on ne sera pas plus avancé après qu'avant. Ne pourrait-on pas essayer de trouver un brave qui essaierait de comprendre un peu ce que fait Néron? Peut-être une série d'exposés sur Néron-Kodaira-Ogg-Tate, par Cartier ou quelque autre, puisque tout cela est lié et devrait être compris ensemble."
("I do not think it is very smart to let Néron talk about himself: we will be no better off afterwards than we were before. Couldn't we try to find someone coureageous enough to try to understand what Néron is doing? Maybe we could have a series of talks by Cartier or someone else, on Néron-Kodaira-Ogg-Tate, since all this is linked, and should be understood together".)
[SERRE, AUGUST 13, 1964]
"Il faudrait que tu m'expliques une fois ce que sont ces symboles locaux de Néron. Je n'ai rien compris à ce que Lang en disait - et je n'avais pas compris davantage le papier de Néron que j'ai eu une fois entre les mains. Mais quel animal ce Néron! Sous ses air patauds, il ne démontre jamais que des choses fondamentales! Dommage qu'il ne sache pas mieux les exposer."
("One of these days, you will have to explain to me what Néron's local symbols [are]. I understood nothing of what Lang said about them - and neither did I understand Néron's paper, which I once had a look at. What an animal Néron is! Underneath the clumsy airs, everything he proves is fundamental! It is a shame he doesn't know how to present his work better.")
Et cetera :)
An excellent question!