Georges de Rham (French: [dəʁam]; 10 September 1903 – 9 October 1990) was a Swiss mathematician, known for his contributions to differential topology.
Biography
Georges de Rham was born on 10 September 1903 in Roche, a small village in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. He was the fifth born of the six children in the family of Léon de Rham, a constructions engineer. Georges de Rham grew up in Roche but went to school in nearby Aigle, the main town of the district, travelling daily by train. By his own account, he was not an extraordinary student in school, where he mainly enjoyed painting and dreamed of becoming a painter. In 1919 he moved with his family to Lausanne in a rented apartment in Beaulieu Castle where he would live for the rest of his life. Georges de Rham started the Gymnasium in Lausanne with a focus on humanities, following his passion for literature and philosophy but learning little mathematics. On graduating from the Gymnasium in 1921 however, he decided not to continue with the Faculty of Letters in order to avoid Latin. He opted instead for the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lausanne. At the faculty he started out studying biology, physics and chemistry and no mathematics initially. While trying to learn some mathematics by himself as a tool for physics, his interest was raised and by the third year he abandoned biology to focus decisively on mathematics.