A taste for sharing
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In the small world of ambassadors of mathematical culture, he was a legend in his own right. Jean Brette (1946–2017), an unrivalled science communicator, has just left us.
How many students, in the end, benefited from Jean's boundless generosity with his time and energy? In schools, and in the famous room at the Palais de la Découverte, where he worked from 1964 to 2004, tens of thousands of them discovered a different, non-academic side of mathematics. Fascinating and impassioned, he sparked countless vocations.
Jean Brette was interested in all of mathematics, in every form it took. Always abreast of the latest developments, he did not hesitate to make geometric objects himself, cutting up erasers, tinkering with scraps of cardboard. His erudition and his taste for sharing naturally led him to talk at length about mathematics with everyone he met.
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Discovering mathematics… differently
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Having joined the Palais de la Découverte at the age of 18, before receiving any solid scientific training, Jean Brette patiently climbed every rung of the ladder, eventually rising to head the mathematics department of this venerable institution… which was at the time nothing more than an unstable place, perpetually under threat. "It had to be saved every year!" recalls the mathematician Michel Demazure, who served as its president between 1991 and 1998. Through sheer perseverance, Jean Brette earned the respect of his peers and became a much-needed link among French mathematicians, whose community was not as well organized then as it is today. Those who spent time with him will remember his collaboration with François Le Lionnais. The lecture by Serge Lang that he organized led to the books Serge Lang fait des maths en public, trois débats au Palais de la découverte (Belin, 1981, 1982, 1983), which would be translated into English (The Beauty of Doing Mathematics, Three Public Dialogues, Springer, 1985).
In addition to a birthday, Jean Brette would sometimes wish his friends a "polyversary". For instance, he gave one of them a thirty-four-sided polygon, constructed with a straightedge and compass, on the day that friend turned 34 years, 34 months, 34 weeks, 34 days, 34 hours and 34 minutes old.
Those who knew him also remember a charming, very unassuming man, who loved fishing, elephants, jazz, bonsai trees and, following his wife Sylvie's lead, the art of flower arranging.
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A peerless lecturer
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Jean Brette always kept his ear to the ground for mathematics in the making. So for anyone who had not seen him in several weeks, he always had a new problem or a new result to explain and discuss. He liked to show that some problem, simple to state, had no solution, or to introduce his listener to the subtleties of infinite descent… From the "budding mathematicians" who came to listen to him at the Palais to the not-so-young who reveled in his lectures, everyone left feeling smarter.
For his work popularizing mathematics, Jean Brette received the 2002 Prix d'Alembert, together with Catherine Goldstein, Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel and Gérard Tronel, for the project "The Image of Mathematics among the General Public, Year 2000, World Mathematical Year". Excerpts from his books are available on the kangmath website. In 1995, together with Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, he also took part in François Tisseyre and Claire Weingarten's "Écoutez voir" workshop, and in the film titled la Nouvelle Étoile du berger (30 min, available online).
