Jacques Tits
Jacques Tits (French: [ʒak tits]) (12 August 1930 – 5
December 2021) was a Belgian-born French Jacques Tits
mathematician who worked on group theory and
incidence geometry. He introduced Tits buildings, the
Tits alternative, the Tits group, and the Tits metric.
Early life and education
Tits was born in Uccle, Belgium to Léon Tits, a
professor, and Lousia André. Jacques attended the
Athénée of Uccle and the Free University of Brussels.
His thesis advisor was Paul Libois, and Tits graduated
with his doctorate in 1950 with the dissertation
Généralisation des groupes projectifs basés sur la
notion de transitivité.[1]
Tits in 2008
Career Born 12 August 1930
Uccle, Belgium
Tits held professorships at the Free University of Died 5 December 2021 (aged 91)
Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de 13th arrondissement, Paris,
Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) (1962– France
1964), the University of Bonn (1964–1974) and the Citizenship Belgian (1930–1974)
Collège de France in Paris, until becoming emeritus in French (since 1974)
2000. He changed his citizenship to French in 1974 in Alma mater Free University of Brussels
order to teach at the Collège de France, which at that
Known for Tits alternative
point required French citizenship. Because Belgian
Tits building
nationality law did not allow dual nationality at the
Tits cone
time, he renounced his Belgian citizenship.[1]
Tits group
Tits was an "honorary" member of the Nicolas Tits index
Bourbaki group; as such, he helped popularize H.S.M. Tits metric
Coxeter's work, introducing terms such as Coxeter Tits systems
number, Coxeter group, and Coxeter graph.[2] Bruhat–Tits fixed point theorem
Freudenthal–Tits magic square
Kantor–Koecher–Tits
Death construction
Artin-Tits group
Kneser–Tits conjecture
Tits died on 5 December 2021, at the age of 91[1] in the Field with one element
13th arrondissement, Paris.[3] Generalized polygon
Awards Francois Deruyts Prize (1962)
Wolf Prize (1993)
Awards and honors Pour le Mérite (1995)
Cantor medal (1996)
Tits received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993, Abel Prize (2008)
the Cantor Medal from the Deutsche Mathematiker-
Scientific career
Vereinigung (German Mathematical Society) in 1996,
and the German distinction "Pour le Mérite". In 2008 Fields Mathematics
he was awarded the Abel Prize, along with John Griggs Institutions Free University of Brussels
Thompson, "for their profound achievements in Vrije Universiteit Brussel
algebra and in particular for shaping modern group University of Bonn
theory".[4] Collège de France
French Academy of Sciences
Tits became a member of the French Academy of
Thesis Généralisation des groupes
Sciences in 1979.[1] He was a member of the
projectifs basés sur la notion de
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[5] He
transitivité (1950)
became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988.[6] Doctoral Paul Libois
advisor
Doctoral Francis Buekenhout
Contributions students Jens Carsten Jantzen
Karl-Otto Stöhr
He introduced the theory of buildings (sometimes
known as Tits buildings), which are combinatorial structures on which groups act, particularly in
algebraic group theory (including finite groups, and groups defined over the p-adic numbers). The related
theory of (B, N) pairs is a basic tool in the theory of groups of Lie type. Of particular importance is his
classification of all irreducible buildings of spherical type and rank at least three, which involved
classifying all polar spaces of rank at least three. The existence of these buildings initially depended on
the existence of a group of Lie type in each case, but in joint work with Mark Ronan he constructed those
of rank at least four independently, yielding the groups directly. In the rank-2 case spherical building are
generalized n-gons, and in joint work with Richard Weiss he classified these when they admit a suitable
group of symmetries (the so-called Moufang polygons). In collaboration with François Bruhat he
developed the theory of affine buildings, and later he classified all irreducible buildings of affine type and
rank at least four.[7]
Another of his well-known theorems is the "Tits alternative": if G is a finitely generated subgroup of a
linear group, then either G has a solvable subgroup of finite index or it has a free subgroup of rank 2.[8]
The Tits group and the Kantor–Koecher–Tits construction are named after him. He introduced the
Kneser–Tits conjecture.[9][10]
Publications
Tits, Jacques (1964). "Algebraic and abstract simple groups". Annals of Mathematics.
Second Series. 80 (2): 313–329. doi:10.2307/1970394 ([Link]
4). ISSN 0003-486X ([Link] JSTOR 1970394 (https://
[Link]/stable/1970394). MR 0164968 ([Link]
m?mr=0164968).
Tits, Jacques (1974). Buildings of spherical type and finite BN-pairs. Lecture Notes in
Mathematics, Vol. 386. Vol. 386. Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-
38349-9 ([Link] ISBN 978-3-540-06757-3.
MR 0470099 ([Link]
Tits, Jacques; Weiss, Richard M. (2002). Moufang polygons. Springer Monographs in
Mathematics. Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-43714-7. MR 1938841 (htt
ps://[Link]/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1938841).
J. Tits, Oeuvres - Collected Works, 4 vol., Europ. Math. Soc., 2013. J. Tits, Résumés des
cours au Collège de France, S.M.F., [Link]. 12, 2013.
References
1. "Décès de Jacques Tits" ([Link]
Mathematical Society of France (in French). 5 December 2021. Retrieved 27 February
2022.
2. Siobhan Roberts, "Donald Coxeter: The man who saved geometry" ([Link]
[Link]/mpugh/[Link]), Toronto Life, January 2003
3. "MatchID - Moteur de recherche des décès" ([Link]
4. "2008 Abel Prize Citation" ([Link]
tee_s_citation_en_Thompson_Tits_2008.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 18 August 2024.
5. "Gruppe 1: Matematiske fag" ([Link]
[Link]/c26849/artikkel/[Link]?tid=40116) (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science
and Letters. Archived from the original ([Link]
16) on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2010.
6. "J.L. Tits" ([Link]
oreign-members/4875). Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from
the original ([Link] on 14 February 2016.
Retrieved 14 February 2016.
7. Tits, Jacques (1986). "Immeubles de Type Affine". In Rosati, Luigi A. (ed.). Buildings and the
Geometry of Diagrams. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol. 1181. Berlin, Heidelberg:
Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 159–190. doi:10.1007/bfb0075514 ([Link]
2Fbfb0075514). ISBN 978-3-540-16466-1.
8. Tits, J. (1972). "Free subgroups in linear groups" ([Link]
872%2990058-0). Journal of Algebra. 20 (2): 250–270. doi:10.1016/0021-8693(72)90058-0
([Link]
9. Tits, J. (1964). "Algebraic and Abstract Simple Groups". The Annals of Mathematics. 80 (2):
313–329. doi:10.2307/1970394 ([Link] JSTOR 1970394 (htt
ps://[Link]/stable/1970394).
10. Gille, Philippe (2009). "Le Problème de Kneser-Tits (Talk no. 983)". Séminaire Bourbaki
Volume 2007/2008 Exposés 982-996 Astérisque ([Link]
009__326__39_0/). Vol. 326.
11. Curtis, Charles W. (1975). "Review: Buildings of spherical type and finite BN-pairs, by
Jacques Tits" ([Link]
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 81 (4): 652–657. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1975-13808-0 ([Link]
org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1975-13808-0).
External links
Jacques Tits ([Link] at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Jacques Tits" ([Link]
[Link]/Biographies/[Link]), MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St
Andrews
Biography at the Abel Prize site ([Link]
791) Archived ([Link]
60/binfil/[Link]?tid=53791) 18 February 2020 at the Wayback Machine (pdf)
List of publications ([Link]
at the Université libre de Bruxelles
Weiss, Richard M. (January 2023). "Jacques Tits (1930–2021)" ([Link]
s/202301/[Link]) (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 70 (1): 77–
93. doi:10.1090/noti2601 ([Link]
Retrieved from "[Link]
