Serge Lang | |
|---|---|
 Serge Lang (1927–2005) | |
| Born | May 19, 1927 Paris, France |
| Died | September 12, 2005 (aged 78) |
| Citizenship | French American |
| Education | California Institute of Technology (BA) Princeton University (PhD) |
| Known for | Work in number theory |
| Awards | Leroy P. Steele Prize (1999) Cole Prize (1960) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | University of Chicago Columbia University Yale University |
| Thesis | On Quasi Algebraic Closure (1951) |
| Doctoral advisor | Emil Artin |
| Doctoral students | Minhyong Kim Stephen Schanuel |
Serge Lang (French: [lɑ̃ɡ]; May 19, 1927 – September 12, 2005) was a French-American mathematician and activist who taught at Yale University for most of his career. He is known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential Algebra. He received the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in 1960 and was a member of the Bourbaki group.
As an activist, Lang campaigned against the Vietnam War, and also successfully fought against the nomination of the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington to the National Academies of Science. Later in his life, Lang was an HIV/AIDS denialist. He claimed that HIV had not been proven to cause AIDS and protested Yale's research into HIV/AIDS.[1]
- ^ Kalichman, Seth (2009). Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy. Springer. p. 182. ISBN 9780387794761.
Lang descended into HIV/AIDS denialism and protested what he saw as the unjust treatment of Duesberg. He conducted a flawed analysis of Duesberg's grant failings and called into question the entire NIH review process. He also caused a bit of commotion on the Yale campus when AIDS speakers visited. He protested the appointment of former Global AIDS Program Director at the World Health Organization Michael Merson as Yale's Dean of Public Health and launched a series of letter writing campaigns to Yale administrators about the role the university was playing in the global AIDS conspiracy.