Laurent Schwartz has won many prestigious awards for his contributions to mathematics, but his most influential work has been in the areas of functional analysis, integral calculus, and differential calculus. In particular, it was his work on the theory of distributions in the late 1940s for which Schwartz will always be remembered.

Schwartz was born on March 5, 1915 in Paris, France. His father was a well-known surgeon who helped Schwartz recover from the polio he contracted when he was 11. As a boy, Schwartz was an excellent student, doing especially well in Greek, Latin, and mathematics. He attended the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) for his early education. It was there that Schwartz became politically active--a characteristic that would stay with him for life. The basis of his political beliefs became nonviolence, working against oppression, service to humanity, and intellectual honesty. He remained a devoted Trotskyist until about...