It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of our friend and colleague Christian Mauduit, professor at Aix-Marseille University, researcher at the Institut de Mathématiques de Marseille (AMU-Centrale-CNRS), member of the Institut Universitaire de France, member of the management team of the Centre International de Mathématiques Pures de Appliquées (CIMPA).
Christian MAUDUIT died of a heart attack on Tuesday, August 13, 2019.
He was a professor at Aix-Marseille University, a researcher at the Institut de Mathématiques de Marseille (AMU-Centrale-CNRS), a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, and a member of the management team of the Centre International de Mathématiques Pures de Appliquées (CIMPA).
A specialist in number theory, his research activities in recent years have focused on symbolic dynamics, digital functions and the classification of real numbers according to their combinatorial complexity.
In 2010, Christian Mauduit, with Joël Rivat, made an important breakthrough on a conjecture formulated in 1968 by the Russian mathematician Alexandre Gelfond concerning the sum of the numbers of prime numbers. In particular, the two researchers demonstrated that there are on average as many prime numbers whose sum of decimal digits is even as there are prime numbers for which it is odd.
The methods used to obtain this demonstration, based on highly innovative combinatorics, number analytic theory and harmonic analysis, should pave the way for the resolution of other difficult questions concerning the representation of certain integer sequences.
In addition to their theoretical interest, these questions are directly related to the construction of pseudo-random number sequences and have important applications in numerical simulation and cryptography.
This progress in mathematics has been ranked among the ten major scientific discoveries made over the past ten years in the PACA region.
For several years, in order to deepen this aspect of numbers, he had been pursuing a fruitful collaboration with his Brazilian colleague Carlo Gustavo Moreira of the Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA, Rio, Brazil) as part of the Franco-Brazilian Network in Mathematics (GDRI-RFBM).
In addition, Christian Mauduit, former director of IREM Marseille (from 2006 to 2011), has also continued to popularize mathematics among young people by getting involved in many regional educational activities: Maths For All association (Alembert Prize 2014), Marseille Second Chance School, conferences and activities for the general public, IREM Hippocampus courses, etc.
He was awarded the CNRS bronze medal in mathematics in 1990.
In 2018, during an Academic Evening, he received the insignia of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes académiques de l'Université d'Aix-Marseille.
We will keep in mind his sympathy, his joviality and his strong personality. We have a special thought for his family. (Text by Eric Lozingot)
President Yvon Berland and the entire Aix-Marseille Université team up with his family and friends at this difficult time.