RIP Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (1923-2025)

[robphy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Choquet-Bruhat

(photo from 1974)

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01763-z

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat obituary: mathematician who established that Einstein’s equations mirror the real world.

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat was a giant of the mathematical study of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Her theorem establishing the existence of solutions to Einstein’s equations is central to how mathematicians and physicists think about general relativity today, from simulating black holes to interpreting observations of gravitational waves.

https://www.ihes.fr/en/yvonne-choquet-bruhat-eng/

It is with deep sadness that IHES has learned of the passing of Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat on Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at the age of 101.​

VIDEO Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES): Hommage à Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat et Cécile DeWitt [earlier PF post about Cecile DeWitt]

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Choquet-Bruhat/
https://scientificwomen.net/women/choquet_bruhat-yvonne-139

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La physicienne Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, première femme élue à l'Académie des sciences (reload, if needed)


(2002) from Cargèse Summer School: 50 years of the Cauchy problem in General Relativity
http://fanfreluche.math.univ-tours.fr/Cauchy2.html

• On parameterizing the space of solutions
  http://fanfreluche.math.univ-tours.fr/organiser/Choquet-Bruhat.htm
• Non linear stability of Einsteinian space times with U(1) isometry group, the general case
  http://fanfreluche.math.univ-tours.fr/lecturer/Choquet-Bruhat.htm

(2006) Mathematical Problems in General Relativity
Emmy Noether Lecture - International Congress of Mathematicians, Madrid 2006
VIDEO: https://av.tib.eu/media/15944
SLIDES: https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/IMU/Videos/ICM2006/tars/choquet2006.pdf
from https://www.mathunion.org/icm/icm-videos/icm-2006-videos-madrid-spain/icm-madrid-videos-25082006 )


(2015) Inaugural Session of MG14 - Rome, July 2015 &t=17m25s


(2016) Conférence - Y CHOQUET BRUHAT - Rencontres avec Einstein - Académie des sciences

(translated text: https://cqgplus.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/some-memories-from-meeting-einstein-in-1951-1952/ )

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VIDEO: (2023) Thibault Damour - Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat: a Mathematician in Einstein’s Universe
SLIDES: http://www.isgrg.org/GRGYCB100Damourv2.pdf

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat has made fundamental contributions to both the mathematical and the physical understanding of Einstein's theory of gravitation. I will briefly summarize some of her achievements including:
1. The first proof of the existence of general (non analytic) solutions of Einstein's theory, including the first rigorous proof that they involve propagation phenomena at the velocity of light, i.e. gravitational waves;
2. Studies of relativistic fluids and of relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics;
3. A study of the exceptional properties of strong high-frequency gravitational waves;
4. Positivity of mass in a neighborhood of Minkowski space;
5. Causality of supergravity and study of Gauss-Bonnet gravity;
6. Existence proofs for classes of cosmological spacetimes; and
7. New formulations of Einstein's equations that proved crucial to the possibility ofnumerically simulating the motion and gravitational radiation of coalescing binary black holes.
- Thibault Damour (IHES)

part of IHES's Day in Honor of Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat’s 100th Birthday

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dissertation:
Théorème d'existence pour certains systèmes d'équations aux dérivées partielles non linéaires
Y. Fourès-Bruhat
Acta Math. 88: 141-225 (1952). DOI: 10.1007/BF02392131

Global aspects of the Cauchy problem in general relativity
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, Robert Geroch
Comm. Math. Phys. 14(4): 329-335 (1969).

Beginnings of the Cauchy problem
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat
https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.3490v1

bibliography:
https://celebratio.org/ChoquetBruhat_Y/article/1071/

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Y-Choquet-Bruhat/s?tag=pfamazon01-20

• (1982 vol 1,1989 vol 2) Analysis, Manifolds and Physics
• (2015) Introduction to General Relativity, Black Holes and Cosmology
• (2016) Une mathematicienne dans cet etrange univers: Memoires
  (translated version: (2018) A Lady Mathematician in this Strange Universe: Memoirs)
• (2009) General Relativity and the Einstein Equations (Oxford Mathematical Monographs)

https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=103574
https://academictree.org/physics/tree.php?pid=733743

 

[TensorCalculus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Choquet-Bruhat
View attachment 363985(photo from 1974)

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01763-z


https://www.ihes.fr/en/yvonne-choquet-bruhat-eng/

VIDEO Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES): Hommage à Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat et Cécile DeWitt [earlier PF post about Cecile DeWitt]

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Choquet-Bruhat/
https://scientificwomen.net/women/choquet_bruhat-yvonne-139

---

La physicienne Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, première femme élue à l'Académie des sciences (reload, if needed)


(2002) from Cargèse Summer School: 50 years of the Cauchy problem in General Relativity
http://fanfreluche.math.univ-tours.fr/Cauchy2.html

• On parameterizing the space of solutions
  http://fanfreluche.math.univ-tours.fr/organiser/Choquet-Bruhat.htm
• Non linear stability of Einsteinian space times with U(1) isometry group, the general case
  http://fanfreluche.math.univ-tours.fr/lecturer/Choquet-Bruhat.htm

(2006) Mathematical Problems in General Relativity
Emmy Noether Lecture - International Congress of Mathematicians, Madrid 2006
VIDEO: https://av.tib.eu/media/15944
SLIDES: https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/IMU/Videos/ICM2006/tars/choquet2006.pdf
from https://www.mathunion.org/icm/icm-videos/icm-2006-videos-madrid-spain/icm-madrid-videos-25082006 )


(2015) Inaugural Session of MG14 - Rome, July 2015 &t=17m25s


(2016) Conférence - Y CHOQUET BRUHAT - Rencontres avec Einstein - Académie des sciences

(translated text: https://cqgplus.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/some-memories-from-meeting-einstein-in-1951-1952/ )

---

VIDEO: (2023) Thibault Damour - Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat: a Mathematician in Einstein’s Universe
SLIDES: http://www.isgrg.org/GRGYCB100Damourv2.pdf

part of IHES's Day in Honor of Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat’s 100th Birthday

---

dissertation:
Théorème d'existence pour certains systèmes d'équations aux dérivées partielles non linéaires
Y. Fourès-Bruhat
Acta Math. 88: 141-225 (1952). DOI: 10.1007/BF02392131

Global aspects of the Cauchy problem in general relativity
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, Robert Geroch
Comm. Math. Phys. 14(4): 329-335 (1969).

Beginnings of the Cauchy problem
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat
https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.3490v1

bibliography:
https://celebratio.org/ChoquetBruhat_Y/article/1071/

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Y-Choquet-Bruhat/s?tag=pfamazon01-20

• (1982 vol 1,1989 vol 2) Analysis, Manifolds and Physics
• (2015) Introduction to General Relativity, Black Holes and Cosmology
• (2016) Une mathematicienne dans cet etrange univers: Memoires
  (translated version: (2018) A Lady Mathematician in this Strange Universe: Memoirs)
• (2009) General Relativity and the Einstein Equations (Oxford Mathematical Monographs)

https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=103574
https://academictree.org/physics/tree.php?pid=733743

By the way: hats off to you for taking so much time to make this commemoration post: I had never heard of her but she sounds like an absolute legend, and I am always amiable to looking at the stories of women in science (I'm sure a few of us were the same as me: not knowing of her until they stumbled across this, right?).
RIP, Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat.

 

[morrobay]

I am amazed at the talent she had. Like transferring Newtons initial value problems , ie Newtons Law of Cooling. In making future value predictions with general relativity initial values. And can anyone give an example of a initial value problem applied in general relativity. At the general discussion/B level ?

 

[jedishrfu]

Thank you for posting this thorough commemoration of this great woman.

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Choquet-Bruhat

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (French: [ivɔn ʃɔkɛ bʁy.a] ⓘ; 29 December 1923 – 11 February 2025) was a French mathematician and physicist. She made seminal contributions to the study of general relativity, by showing that the Einstein field equations can be put into the form of an initial value problem which is well-posed. In 2015, her breakthrough paper was listed by the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity as one of thirteen 'milestone' results in the study of general relativity, spanning a century of its study.[1]

Choquet-Bruhat was the first woman to be elected to the French Academy of Sciences and was a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.[2]

 

[romsofia]

Cecile's and her book "Analysis, Manifolds and Physics" is what made me really want to get into the mathematics of physics. I love the way she presents information in her books. She was one of my idols in this field (next to Bryce DeWitt).