He is chiefly recognized as one of the primary investigators of the numerical set associated with his name, the Pisot–Vijayaraghavan numbers.

He followed the classical path of great French mathematicians by studying at the École Normale Supérieure on Ulm street, where he was received first at the agrégation in 1932.

He then began his academic career at the Bordeaux University before being offered a chair at the Science Faculty of Paris and at the École Polytechnique.

(For a technical account and bibliography see Umberto Zannier's paper in the Annals of Mathematics.

)[2] He was also the coauthor (with Marc Zamansky) of a textbook in general mathematics (titled Mathématiques générales) which was very popular in the 1960s and 1970s.