5 December 2025

9:50 AM – 10:35 AM

Amphi Grand Kursaal

Olivier Fouquet

A former student of the École Polytechnique, Olivier Fouquet holds a PhD in pure mathematics from Sorbonne University. He then worked as a researcher at Osaka University, a lecturer at Paris-Saclay University, a researcher at the University of Montreal, and finally a university professor at Marie and Louis Pasteur University. My research focuses on arithmetic geometry, particularly the special values of L-functions of automorphic representations. At the same time, Olivier Fouquet is very involved in the dialogue between mathematics, the history of mathematics, and the philosophy of mathematics, and is the author of an introductory book on the epistemology of mathematics.

Can we understand mathematically what happens at the limit?

The concept of mathematical limits is a way of using rigorous proof to grasp the idea of approaching the infinitely large or the infinitely small, or of approaching a point infinitely closely. This idea, introduced with the revolution of infinitesimal calculus, immediately demonstrated its power in physics and analysis, but in the 20th and 21st centuries it has taken many new and surprising forms. In this lecture, I will begin with a few simple examples of limits that we have all encountered before discussing strange mathematical phenomena or several completely different notions of limits that interact to reveal mathematical truths at the crossroads of analysis, arithmetic, and topology.