The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician

André Weil was born on May 6, 1906 in Paris. After studying mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure and receiving a doctoral degree from the University of Paris in 1928, he held professorial positions in India, France, the United States and Brazil before being appointed to the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton in 1958, where he remained until he died on August 6, 1998. André Weil's work laid the foundation for abstract algebraic geometry and the modern theory of abelian varieties. A great deal of his work was directed towards establishing the links between number theory and algebraic geometry and devising modern methods in analytic number theory. Weil was one of the founders, around 1934, of the group that published, under the collective name of N. Bourbaki, the highly influential multi-volume treatise Eléments de mathématique.

I Growing Up.- II At the Ecole Normale.- III First Journeys, First Writings.- IV India.- V Strasbourg and Bourbaki.- VI The War and I: A Comic Opera in Six Acts.- Prelude.- Finnish Fugue.- Arctic Intermezzo.- Under Lock and Key.- Serving the Colors.- A Farewell to Arms.- VII The Americas; Epilogue.- Index of Names.