History’s scars—a scientific controversy… in 1965

Abstract

Julia claimed priority on iteration and got it; Fatou died without knowing that he would perhaps be recognised at last for his scientific merit; German mathematicians were somehow reinstated in the international scientific community; Julia, then Montel, were elected science academicians; German science was decimated (we caught sight of this with Hausdorff’s suicide and Siegel’s move to the United States, where he published the article [Siegel 1942] mentioned above), and this was a prelude to the start of a new war which tried and divided French mathematicians as it tried and divided the population. After the Liberation, the community started up again, not forgetting its antagonisms but without speaking of them, so that they are today forgotten. Nevertheless, this community is not, and never was, monolithic.