We bid farewell to Jacques Tits, who created a new and highly influential vision of groups as geometric objects. Tits was awarded the Abel Prize in 2008 together with John Griggs Thompson, "for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory."

Tits was a mathematical prodigy who passed the entrance exam to the Free University in Belgium at 14 years old and received his PhD five years later at 19. His prolific mathematical mind went on to make fundamental advancements in group theory and created "Tits building," encoding the algebraic structure of linear groups in geometric terms.

Tits was elected into the French Académie des Sciences in 1974, and became a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. He held several honorary doctorates and received distinguished mathematical awards, such as the Wolf Prize and the Cantor Medal.

more