tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (A borderline question)

Harry Gindi comments on "A borderline question" (4454)

Harry Gindi — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:04:04 -0700

The situation was similar with Giraud when I tried to look him up a month or so ago. He's not even on wikipedia.fr, and the english wikipedia page says pretty much nothing.

Pete L. Clark comments on "A borderline question" (4437)

Pete L. Clark — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:50:08 -0700

It certainly wouldn't work on Jeopardy -- you need to phrase it in the form of a question!

Seriously, yes, it seems like a very appropriate question (suitably phrased) -- not borderline in my opinion.

Ben Webster comments on "A borderline question" (4436)

Ben Webster — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:48:17 -0700

I would say so. As long as you've made a good faith attempt to find the info in the obvious places, which it seems like you have, I think this is a perfectly reasonable question.

stankewicz comments on "A borderline question" (4430)

stankewicz — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:02:59 -0700

Tomorrow it will have been 25 years since Neron died, but I can't find much biographical information on him. The wikipedia article just tells me birth and death dates, and one place of employment. A google search tells me another place of employment, his mathematical genealogy... and not much else. He doesn't have a MacTutor biography and his name only comes up there in the John Tate biography.

To cut to the chase, I was thinking of asking for some biographical data/stories about him in a community wiki question. This seems to be the most likely place to find someone who might have known/worked with him. Moreover, St. Andrews does not seem to solicit requests or suggestions for biographies, so I don't know where else I would ask this.

Of course this question is a borderline question, so I'm asking here first. Would "Biographical Data about Andre Neron" work as a MO question?