The Institut Mittag-Leffler and its Archives: A Mathematician and his Legacy

[摘要] It is quite impossible to write about the history of theInstitut Mittag-Leffler (IML) without, at the same time,discussing the mathematician who conceived it and afterwhom it is named.1In writing his obituary, G.H. Hardy noted that“[t]here have been greater mathematicians during thelast fifty years, but no one who has done in his way morefor mathematics” [10, p. 160]. And, indeed, even thoughhe produced quite deep results during his active years,Gösta Mittag-Leffler is mostly remembered for his vitalrole in the mathematical community at the turn of thecentury and as the founder of Acta Mathematica, whichappeared in 1882 for the first time. André Weil aptlycalled Mittag-Leffler’s new journal his deed of true genius [24, p. 12].