SHOKICHI IYANAGA

Tokyo, 2 April 1906 - Tokyo, 1 June 2006

Iyanaga
























Brief scientific biography


On April 2, 1906, Shokichi Iyanaga was born in Tokyo, where his father was a banker. There Shokichi was educated from elementary school through an undergraduate degree at the (Imperial) University of Tokyo in 1931. After spending several months in graduate school at the University of Tokyo, he continued his study of mathematics in France (Paris) and Germany (Hamburg) for three years.
From 1935 to 1942, he was an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, and then a professor of mathematics there from 1942 to 1967. At the same time, in 1960-61, he was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. At the age of 60, he retired from the University of Tokyo and from then on he was a professor emeritus at that university. However, this was not the end of his career. Actually, he was a visiting Professor at Nancy in France from 1967 to 1968. Immediately after his retirement from the University of Tokyo, he became a professor of mathematics at Gakushuim University in Tokyo, where he taught from 1967 to 1977.

In 1955, he organized the International Symposium on Algebraic Number Theory held at Tokyo and Nikko, where the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture originated.
Several times between 1950 and 1971, he was elected president of the Mathematical Society of Japan. From 1952 to 1955, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union and from 1957 to 1978, he was president of the International Commission of Mathematical Instruction.
Claude Chevalley (left), Miss S. Miyajima(secretary; middle) and Shokichi Iyanaga (right) in front of Kegon Falls at Nikko, where the international symposium on algebraic number theory was held in 1955.
Claude Chevalley (left), Miss S. Miyajima(secretary; middle)
and Shokichi Iyanaga (right) in front of Kegon Falls at Nikko,
where the international symposium on algebraic number theory was held in 1955.

As a mathematician, he wrote many research papers in German, French and English. His works on mathematics were assembled and a book entitled Shokichi Iyanaga Collected Papers was published by Iwanami Publisher in 1994. In the preface, the Editorial Committee wrote: "By his broad knowledge and keen foresight which anticipated the new direction of developments in mathematics, he contributed greatly to raising the level of mathematical activity in Japan to an international standard."

As a chief editor, he edited and wrote many mathematical textbooks in Japanese for schools, such as New Arithmetics I-VI (textbooks for primary schools, 1950-74), New Mathematics I-III (textbooks for junior secondary schools, 1951-75), General Mathematics, etc. (textbooks for senior secondary schools, 1956-61), which were published by Tokyo Shoseki. Publisher.
In 1954 he edited the first version of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics, which was translated into English and published by MIT Press.
Shokichi Iyanaga and his wife Sumiko at the party celebrating his 95th birthday.
Shokichi Iyanaga and his wife Sumiko at the party celebrating his 95th birthday.

In 1999 and 2002 he published two books on mathematician E. Galois. In 2004, at the age of 98, he wrote an autobiography, published by the Iwanami Publisher. His last article was "Travaux de Claude Chevalley sur la theorie du corps de classes: Introduction" in Japanese Journal of Mathematics 1, 25-85 (2006), published by the Mathematical Society of Japan. Until the age of 98, he continued to participate in the seminar on number theory at Gakushuin Univerisity.
In 1976 he was awarded the Rising Sun of Second Class from Japan in 1976. In 1978 he was elected a member of the Japan Academy in 1978. He received the Order of Palmes Academiques from France in 1979, and the Order of Legion d'Honneur from France in 1980. He died on June 1, 2006.



Relevant bibliography



S. IYANAGA, Collected works, Tokyo, Iwanami 1994
S. IYANAGA, K. KODAIRA, Gendai Sugaku Gaisetsu I (Introduction to Modern Mathematics I) , Tokyo, Iwanami 1961
S. IYANAGA, Kikagaku Josetsu (Introduction to Geometry) , Tokyo, Iwanami 1968.
S. IYANAGA (edited by), Sugaku Jiten (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics) , first edition, Mathematical Society of Japan 1954



Works on mathematics education



S. IYANAGA, Sugaku no Manabikata (How to Learn Mathematics) , Tokyo, Diamond 1965.
S. IYANAGA, Sugakusha no Nijisseiki (A Mathematician in the Twentieth Century) , Tokyo, Iwanami 2000. It is a collection of Yyanaga's essays that contains some essays concerning mathematics education.




Author
Shigeru Iitaka
Gakushuin University
851051@gakushuin.ac.jp