There was a conference yesterday in his honour in Paris: https://serre100.sciencesconf.org/

Serre wasn't there, but did a talk over Zoom from Switzerland where he now lives. I wasn't there either, but followed (and enjoyed) his talk over the YouTube stream. This was both a reminiscence of the mathematics of the 50s, and reflections on the role of counterexamples in mathematics.

Fun facts: Serre is still the youngest mathematician to be awarded the Fields medal, at 27. And Serre still publishes mathematics papers, the last one in 2025 (he was 99). A volume V of his Collected Papers (1998-2025) was published this summer by Springer. What a career!

I like this site of Mathematicians' biographies with some occasional quoted segments for extra flavor.

I also like how Serre wrote a book on linear representations of symmetry groups, because his wife needed a good exposition of the subject for her work on quantum chemistry, and that Serre described that as "fullfiling his duty as a husband" :-P

The European Mathematical Society just published an interview with Serre on the occasion of his birthday: https://euromathsoc.org/news/ems-magazine-no.-141:-celebrati...

> I did not like, and did not understand, epsilons and deltas.

It's nice to have this perspective validated by someone like Serre! I felt like I was missing something when I first encountered that formalism. In fact, all of my introductory calculus classes sucked and turned me off of math for a few years.

I'm reading and liking his book just called "Trees" (some bites), it is about group actions on trees, written in the '80. It talks about the modular group among others, the tree action also being used in Shai Haran work on the "real" prime (if the AIs let us dream the old way about classic problems). Serre et al graph of groups idea is very categorical. He could well have been present in the very seminars when Grothendiek was breweing what is now called the Grothendiek construction (absurdly, since G was a serial constructor). That wraps that graph of groups thing.

"When I was 14 or 15, I used to look at these books, and study them"

Smartphones prevent most teenagers of this era to read a book. This may apply to lots of adults.

Happy birthday “Tonton Serre”

on slightly related note of longevity - Fred Haise, one of three Apollo 13 astronatuts celebrated 92nd birthday day before yesterday, Jim Lovell died at 97 and only one who lived short life was Jack Swigert who died at 51 (respiratory failure)