Maurice Fréchet is the author of an extensive and major body of work in analysis. He notably introduced several basic topological notions, such as compact convergence, metric spaces (some of which, the Fréchet spaces, are named in his honor), filters, and uniform convergence. He also carried out fundamental work in probability theory. Finally, he took an interest in the links between mathematics and the abstract or the concrete. On this last subject, he wrote two books, Les Espaces abstraits et leur théorie considérée comme introduction à l’analyse générale (Gauthier-Villars, 1928, 1951 for the second edition) and *Les Mathématiques et le Concret* (Presses universitaires de France, 1955).
René Maurice Fréchet (1878–1973) taught at the universities
of Poitiers (Vienne), Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), and Paris.
