Talk:Henri Lebesgue

Lebesgue Integration
All this talk of integration strikes me as inapproprite for a biography of Lebesgue, which is what this article ought to be. It's nice that User:The_Anome is destubbing it; it's just that the test that (s)he is writing ought to be in the article Lebesgue_integration instead. After all, Lebesgue did a lot more than just this integral, and we'll want to write about that in here eventually. I'm not saying that The Anome's text is bad, not at all, only that it's in the wrong article. &mdash; Toby Bartels, Wednesday, July 10, 2002

It is stated that "every bounded function on a closed bounded interval has a Lebesgue integral" - I'm quite sure this is wrong, take the characteristic function of a non-measurable set. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.126.15.205 (talk) 02:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Dissertation Length
Is it true that Lebesgue's dissertation about the Lebesgue integral was just 3 pages long? That should be mentioned, if confirmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)


 * It seems to be 129 pages here:, which catalogues the theses, and here: , which seems to be a copy from Annali di Matematica 148.252.128.130 (talk) 23:04, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation
How is this name pronounced? I have never heard it before; a pronunciation guide would be helpful. --LostLeviathan 05:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

LEH-BEG. The "s" is silent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

The IPA representation is fine, but an English approximation would be more useful. C Clingen (talk) 14:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Etymology
In French, le bègue means "the stutterer". I'm guessing this is the etymology of Lebesgue's name, but I'm not sure. Does anyone have evidence to this effect? --Siva 04:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Infobox
I've added an infobox to this article together with information contained in the piece or very obviously available through the external links on the page. I've left the flag needs-infobox to yes despite this as some important fields remain empty. Specifically: caption (I've found no history behind this photo giving a context); alma_mater (probably ENS, Paris but I've not seen this explicitly stated as the explicit issuer of his PhD - there is a ref. to Poincare tho') and work_institutions. Depending on how the article develops prizes and footnotes may also be important. -- Asperal 16:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing that. If you've found no history on the photograph, it might be better to replace it with an older one, as this one isn't obviously old enough to be public domain. See my talk page for more info. Geometry guy 14:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Cronholm added the alma mater. Is there anything else needed, or can we remove the needs-infobox tag now? Geometry guy 20:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * My view is that the addition of the alma-mater is sufficient to remove the infobox tag. As I added this tag I've now removed it. Thank you, Asperal 21:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * A quick search on Wikimedia Commons found the, already loaded, other image you mentioned of Henri Lebesgue. I've switched the reference in this document to that earlier picture. Please feel welcome to make further changes, or remove, if there might be copyright concerns. Asperal 11:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I wrote a new section, copyediting is welcome. Also I am not sure this article is quite B-class yet. --Cronholm144 21:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I agree with G-guy that the informal discussion of integration really doesn't belong in this article. Thought?--Cronholm144 21:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Completely agree. The section on integration, for this article, only needs to go so far as to cover it's relevance to the individual. There is already an article section covering the general history. Asperal 11:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

L1 or continuous
The article states: "He also proves that the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma is a best possible result for continuous functions"

Surely this is supposed to be L^1 functions, rather than continuous? Otherwise, I'm not sure what the content of the sentence is supposed to mean.--74.132.206.251 (talk) 01:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Birthplace
According to this article, Lebesgue is born in both Beauvais and Rennes, but aren't those two different places? If that is the case, then surely something is wrong. --pred (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

surfaces applicable to a plane
Section 2 on "Mathematical career" has the following in the fourth line: "The next five dealt with surfaces applicable to a plane, the area of skew polygons, surface integrals of minimum area ...". The word "applicable" is probably erroneous translation from French, and the correct phrase replacing it should probably be "mappable in a one-to-one way", or in better English, it should be written as "surfaces that can be mapped into the plane in a one-to-one way". I don't really know, because I don't have the French title in front of me. In any case, the word "applicable" does not make good sense here, whereas the analogous word in French would make good sense. Someone should correct this. Mateat (talk) 21:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"teilweise heftig" mistranslation
The phrase "... calls it the `teilweise heftig`" is not correct; "teilweise heftig" means "sometimes violently" in german, so ".. refers to [the controversy] as being `somewhat violent`" would be more correct I guess. There's a brief mention of this on page 69 in the Jerzy Neyman bio (see http://books.google.com/books?id=RIt1bKo0j58C ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakob med fisken (talk • contribs) 12:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

You are correct, sir. I removed this reference. Gromobir (talk) 19:42, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Links removed
I removed all journal links to the original article in accordance with WP:NOTLINK (see also WP:EL). Please discuss here first before adding them back. Mhym (talk) 17:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything in WP:NOTLINK that opposes the inclusion of a small group of informative links like this. They are more in the nature of a bibliography. The article is a full and informative one, and not just a collection of links. IMHO, removing these links makes the article less useful. Lou Sander (talk) 12:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * By a "small group" you mean the whole section of 19 links. This is explicitly what WP means by "link depositary".  And of course links removal makes the article is less useful to somebody: people who need a catalog of Lebesgue papers.  However, keep in mind that this is his biography article, not an article about his contributions to mathematics.  In the latter case, if the links are integrated with the article content, links are more appropriate (see WP:EL). Mhym (talk) 14:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the links were exactly what I came for. A convenience link to the page just before the removal: []. 148.252.128.130 (talk) 22:48, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Method of Lebesgue's integration picture is wrong
This picture is wrong, it shows Riemann integration just like the one before, not Lebesgue integration.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebesgue_integration#Intuitive_interpretation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:0:105F:3:847B:5B9E:239D:B00C (talk) 14:52, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 17:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Dead Links - Footnote 6
Can someone please fix the "dead links" here:

6. McElroy, Tucker (2005). A to Z of mathematicians. Infobase Publishing. pp. 164. ISBN 978-0-8160-5338-4. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.41.98.105 (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Practical applications to physics?
The article states "These have important practical implications for fundamental physics of which Lebesgue would have been completely unaware, as noted below." But I can't find any text below (or above) that would even remotely qualify. If another editor can fix this, please do so. Otherwise, I'll have to return in a few weeks and remove this statement as it appears to refer to something that has long since been edited out of the article. Ross Fraser (talk) 03:21, 30 December 2023 (UTC)