Abstract
Jacques Tits is the founder and main developer of the monumental Theory of Buildings which is primarily a combinatorial geometric structure underlying groups of Lie type. It is so to speak group theory without groups. It is a tool to recognize groups of Lie type in contexts where they are not readily present. Its influence on group theory and on the development of algebra is growing fast. On his way to buildings, Tits created the theory of abstract Coxeter groups. Together with François Bruhat, he classified the affine buildings in rather long and difficult work. Together with Richard Weiss, he finished the theory of Moufang polygons in an elementary and long masterpiece of revolutionary algebra.
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Notes
- 1.
The citation “[Tn]” refers to the nth publication in the list of publications of Jacques Tits in the present volume.
- 2.
Note also the paper [12] by Libois. In the introduction he says: “Cette communication, élaborée en étroite collaboration avec MM. P. Defrise et J. Tits, a pour but d’indiquer une conception de cette synthèse, de souligner les éléments déjà obtenus et qui nous paraissent les plus importants, d’apporter des résultats nouveaux.”
- 3.
On the hypotheses which underlie geometry.
- 4.
G p denotes the stabilizer of p in G.
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1 Electronic Supplementary Material
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A lecture by Prof. Broue in connection with the Abel Prize 2008 to John G. Thompson and Jacques Tits (MP4 289 MB)
A lecture by Prof. Lubotzky in connection with the Abel Prize 2008 to John G. Thompson and Jacques Tits (MP4 325 MB)
The Abel Lecture by John G. Thompson, the Abel Laureate 2008 (MP4 357 MB)
The Abel Lecture by Jacques Tits, the Abel Laureate 2008 (MP4 278 MB)
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Buekenhout, F. (2014). A Report on the Scientific Contributions of Jacques Tits. In: Holden, H., Piene, R. (eds) The Abel Prize 2008-2012. The Abel Prize. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39449-2_5
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