Family name

First name

Biography

Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French mathematician and politician.

Borel was born in Saint-Affrique, Aveyron. Along with René-Louis Baire and Henri Lebesgue, he was among the pioneers of measure theory and its application to probability theory. The concept of a Borel set is named in his honor. One of his books on probability introduced the amusing thought experiment that entered popular culture under the name infinite monkey theorem or the like. He also published a series of papers (1921-27) that first defined games of strategy.

In 1913 and 1914 he bridged the gap between hyperbolic geometry and special relativity with expository work.

In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s he was active in politics. From 1924 to 1936, he was a member of the French National Assembly. In 1925, he was Minister of Marine. During the Second World War he was a member of the French Resistance.

Borel died in Paris in 1956.