Roger Apéry

Roger Apéry (1916 to 1994) was a Greek-French mathematician best remembered for Apéry's theorem, which states that the value of the Riemann zeta function at 3 is an irrational number. He was born in Rouen to a French mother and a Greek father, grew up in Lille and Paris, and entered the École normale supérieure in 1935. The war interrupted his studies: he was mobilised in 1939, taken prisoner in June 1940 and repatriated ill in 1941. He wrote his doctoral thesis in algebraic geometry in 1947 under Paul Dubreil and René Garnier, taught at Rennes and then, from 1949 until retirement, was professor at the University of Caen. His unexpected 1979 proof of the irrationality of zeta of 3 prompted many later attempts to extend the method to other odd powers. He died in Caen in 1994 and is buried at Père Lachaise.