Roger Apéry

Roger Apéry (French: [apeʁi]; 14 November 1916, Rouen – 18 December 1994, Caen) was a French mathematician most remembered for Apéry's theorem, which states that ζ(3) is an irrational number. Here, ζ(s) denotes the Riemann zeta function.

Biography

Apéry was born in Rouen in 1916 to a French mother and Greek father. His childhood was spent in Lille until 1926, when the family moved to Paris, where he studied at the Lycée Ledru-Rollin and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He was admitted at the École normale supérieure in 1935. His studies were interrupted at the start of World War II; he was mobilized in September 1939, taken prisoner of war in June 1940, repatriated with pleurisy in June 1941, and hospitalized until August 1941. He wrote his doctoral thesis in algebraic geometry under the direction of Paul Dubreil and René Garnier in 1947.

In 1947 Apéry was appointed

In 1979 he published an unexpected proof of the

In 1994, Apéry died from Parkinson's disease after a long illness in Caen. He was buried next to his parents at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His tombstone has a mathematical inscription stating his theorem.

${\displaystyle 1+{\frac {1}{8}}+{\frac {1}{27}}+{\frac {1}{64}}+\cdots \neq {\frac {p}{q}}}$

See also

• Apéry's constant
• Basel problem

External links

• Apéry, François (1996). "Roger Apéry, 1916-1994: A Radical Mathematician".
  S2CID 120113351
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