Édith Mourier (21 December 1920 - 19 December 2017)[1] was a French mathematician, specialising in probability theory. She is remembered in particular for the Fortet-Mourier distance, used to quantify the difference between two measurements.[2]
Édith Mourier | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 21, 1920 |
| Died | December 19, 2017 (aged 96) |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne University |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
| Known for | Fortet-Mourier distance |
Early life and education
editCareer
editAfter earning her bachelor's degree, she joined the institut Henri-Poincaré where she collaborated with a small group of researchers working on probability theory,[4] a field of mathematical research which was somewhat neglected in France at the time.[2]
Mourier became a researcher at Centre national de la recherche scientifique (French National Centre for Scientific Research) (CNRS) in 1945.[2] At this time, she took part in an informal reading group on statistics with Lucien de Cam and Edith Rothschild. [5]
In 1952, Mourier was appointed director of research at CNRS after defending her doctoral thesis on Random elements in a Banach space.[2] This work generalises the law of large numbers relating to random points to function spaces (Banach spaces), known as the Fortet-Mourier theorem after Mourier and her PhD supervisor and colleague Robert Fortet.[2] It is known as the Satz von Mourier in Germany.[6]
After leaving CNRS, Mourier became a professor at the University of Poitiers from 1956 to 1967, then at the University of Paris from 1967 to 1987, where in particular she was active in the LPMA laboratory (Laboratoire de Probabilité et Modèles Aléatoires), collaborating with Robert Fortet and the evolving Jacques Neveu.(.[2]
She remained at the LPNA for the next 20 years, that is until the end of her career. She continued to maintain an interest in telecommunications, investigating signal detection in the presence of noise and also embarking on the definition of white noise.[2]
Personal life
editÉdith Mourier died on 19 December 2017 in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.[3]
Publications
edit- Éléments aléatoires dans un espace de Banach. Vol. 13. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. 1953. p. 161-244. OCLC 1157293879..
- Mourier, Edith (1976-03-01). "Influence d'une erreur sur la covariance dans le problème de la détection d'un signal certain dans un bruit laplacien centré". Annales des Télécommunications (in French). 31 (3): 108–110. Bibcode:1976AnTel..31..108M. doi:10.1007/BF02997592. ISSN 1958-9395..
- "Random elements in linear spaces". Berkeley Symp. On Math. Statist. And Prob. 5.2A: 43-53. 1967..
- Mourier, Édith (1964-07-01). "Le bruit blanc". Annales des Télécommunications (in French). 19 (7): 169–172. doi:10.1007/BF03021654. ISSN 1958-9395..
Commemoration
editIn 2026, Édith Mourier was announced as one of 72 historical women in STEM whose names have been proposed to be added to the 72 men already celebrated on the Eiffel Tower. The plan was conceived by a student and tour guide named Bernard Rigaud[7] and it was announced by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo following the recommendations of a committee led by Isabelle Vauglin of Femmes et Sciences and Jean-François Martins, representing the operating company which runs the Eiffel Tower.[8][9][10][6]
References
edit- ↑ "matchID - Moteur de recherche des décès". deces.matchid.io. Retrieved 2026-03-05.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Charlotte Baey, Olivier Bouaziz, Barnabé Croizat (November 2025). "Newsletter Commission Parité (Novembre 2025), Laboratoire Paul Painlevé (Université de Lille)" (PDF) (in French). Laboratoire Paul Painlevé. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - 1 2 France, Décès en. "Mme MOURIER Edith Marguerite Pauline - Décès en France - Registre des personnes décédées en France depuis 1970 à 2026". www.deces-en-france.fr (in French). Retrieved 2026-03-05.
- ↑ Claire Berthelemy; Gabriel Jaquemet (2026-01-28). "Dans quelles écoles ont été formées les 72 scientifiques dont les noms vont orner la tour Eiffel ?". leparisien.fr (in French). Retrieved 2026-01-31.
- ↑ Yang, Grace L. (1999-05-01). "A conversation with Lucien Le Cam". Statistical Science. 14 (2). doi:10.1214/ss/1009212249. ISSN 0883-4237.
- 1 2 Eiffel Tower to honor 72 women scientists for posterity, 2026-01-26, retrieved 2026-02-03
- ↑ "The Hypatia project: engraving the names of 72 women scientists on the Eiffel Tower". Sorbonne Université. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
- ↑ "Eiffel Tower: a list of 72 women scientists will soon be inscribed on the Parisian monument", www.sortiraparis.com, retrieved 2026-02-02
- ↑ "Les noms des 72 femmes pour la Tour Eiffel ont été révélés.", Femmes & Sciences (in French), retrieved 2026-02-22
- ↑ 72 femmes de sciences pour la tour Eiffel Femmes & Sciences (in French). Retrieved 2026-02-22