BOURBAKI, NICOLAS

pseudonym chosen by a dozen or so young mathematicians in France in the mid-1930s to represent the essence of a contemporary mathematician. The surname, selected in jest, was that of a French general whose efforts to bridge the Prussian line during the Franco-German War (187071) ended in a humiliating disaster. The mathematicians who collectively wrote under the Bourbaki pseudonym at one time studied at the cole Normale Suprieure in Paris and were admirers of the German mathematician David Hilbert (q.v.). They included the Frenchmen Claude Chevalley, Andr Weil, Henri Cartan, Jean Dieudonn, and C. Ehresmann and the American Samuel Eilenberg. Members agreed to retire from the group at age 50, but the group's ranks were replenished with new recruits. The group's purpose was to present mathematics in a contemporary and original fashion as well as to illustrate the axiomatic structure of modern mathematics. Thus, the Bourbaki authors used special notations to illustrate key points and concluded chapters with historical notes and exercises. The Bourbaki writings commenced in 1939 with the first of what was to become a comprehensive treatise, lments de mathmatique. The still-incomplete series of more than 30 monographs soon became a standard reference on the fundamental aspects of modern mathematics. The various historical notes included at the ends of chapters were published as a collection in 1960 in Elments d'histoire des mathmatiques.