Pierre Samuel was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, known for his work in commutative algebra

Commutative algebra

Commutative algebra is the branch of abstract algebra that studies commutative rings, their ideals, and modules over such rings. Both algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory build on commutative algebra...

 and its applications to algebraic geometry

Algebraic geometry

Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which combines techniques of abstract algebra, especially commutative algebra, with the language and the problems of geometry. It occupies a central place in modern mathematics and has multiple conceptual connections with such diverse fields as complex...

. The two-volume work Commutative Algebra that he wrote with Oscar Zariski

Oscar Zariski

Oscar Zariski was a Russian mathematician and one of the most influential algebraic geometers of the 20th century.-Education:...

 is a classic. Other books of his covered projective geometry

Projective geometry

In mathematics, projective geometry is the study of geometric properties that are invariant under projective transformations. This means that, compared to elementary geometry, projective geometry has a different setting, projective space, and a selective set of basic geometric concepts...

 and algebraic number theory

Algebraic number theory

Algebraic number theory is a major branch of number theory which studies algebraic structures related to algebraic integers. This is generally accomplished by considering a ring of algebraic integers O in an algebraic number field K/Q, and studying their algebraic properties such as factorization,...

. He ran a Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 seminar during the 1960s, and became Professeur émérite at the Université Paris-Sud (Orsay). His lectures on unique factorization domains published by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is a research institution in India dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is located at Navy Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai...

 played a significant role in computing the Picard group of a Zariski surface

Zariski surface

In algebraic geometry, a branch of mathematics, a Zariski surface is a surface over a field of characteristic p > 0 such that there is a dominant inseparable map of degree p from the projective plane to the surface...

 via the work of Jeffrey Lang and collaborators. The method was inspired by earlier work of Nathan Jacobson

Nathan Jacobson

Nathan Jacobson was an American mathematician....

 and Pierre Cartier

Pierre Cartier (mathematician)

Pierre Cartier is a mathematician. An associate of the Bourbaki group and at one time a colleague of Alexander Grothendieck, his interests have ranged over algebraic geometry, representation theory, mathematical physics, and category theory....

 another outstanding member of the Bourbaki group. Nicholas Katz

Nick Katz

Nicholas Michael Katz is an American mathematician, working in the fields of algebraic geometry, particularly on p-adic methods, monodromy and moduli problems, and number theory...

 related this to the concept of p-curvature of a connection introduced by Alexander Grothendieck

Alexander Grothendieck

Alexander Grothendieck is a mathematician and the central figure behind the creation of the modern theory of algebraic geometry. His research program vastly extended the scope of the field, incorporating major elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory, and category theory...

.

He was a member of the Bourbaki group, and filmed some of their meetings. A French television documentary on Bourbaki broadcast some of this footage in 2000.

Samuel was also active in issues of social justice

Social justice

Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...

, including concerns about environmental

Environment (biophysical)

The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...

 degradation (where he was influenced by Grothendieck), and arms control

Arms control

Arms control is an umbrella term for restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of weapons, especially weapons of mass destruction...

. He died in Paris in August 2009.

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