Essays on Topology

Louis Funar (born 1967) is Directeur de Recherches at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and currently Director of the Institut Fourier, University Grenoble Alpes. His main fields of interest are geometry, topology and mathematical quantum field theory. He visited University of Pisa (1995), University of Palermo (1996-2006),  Columbia University (1996-1997), Tokyo Institute of Technology (1999-2000), IMAR Bucharest (2001, 2007), University of Ljubljana (2005, 2006), Schrodinger Institute Vienna (2013, 2014). University Babes-Bolyai (2014, 2018, 2021). He is the author of more than 80 published articles. Athanase Papadopoulos (born 1957) is Directeur de Recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. His main fields of interest are geometry and topology, the history and philosophy of mathematics, and mathematics and music. He has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (1984-85 and 1993-94), USC (1998-1999), CUNY (Ada Peluso Professor, 2014), Brown University (Distinguished visiting professor, 2017), Tsinghua University, Beijing (2018), Lamé Chair of the State University of Saint Petersburg (2019), and has had several month visits to the Max-Plank Institute for mathematics (Bonn), the Erwin Schrödinger Institute (Vienna), the Graduate Center of CUNY (New York), the Tata Institute (Bombay), Galatasaray University (Istanbul), the University of Florence (Italy), Fudan University (Shanghai), Gakushuin University (Tokyo), Presidency University (Calcutta) and Banaras Hindu University (Adjunct professor for the year 2024). He is the author of more than 200 published articles and 45 monographs and edited books on mathematics, history of mathematics, and music theory. At the University of Strasbourg, he is also member of the CREAA (Centre de Recherche et d'Expérimentation sur l'Acte Artistique).