List of
Biographies
- Berwald
- Ludwig Berwald
(1883-1942). Born in Prague. Studied mathematics in Munich and
became a full professor at the German Charles University in Prague.
His scientific work is mainly in differential geometry, notably on
Finsler geometry and on spray geometry, i.e., path spaces. He died in Poland after
having been deported by the German authorities just because he was
Jewish.
- Bortolotti
- Enea Bortolotti
(1896-1934). Born in Rome. After a break during the First World
War, he received his Ph.D. in 1920 at Pisa; he was
particularly influenced by L. Bianchi. After teaching at the
medical school, he became professor of geometry at the Univerity of
Cagliari in 1928. From there he moved on to the same position at
the University of Florence in 1934. Despite his premature death,
Bortolotti published about a hundred papers, notably in
differential geometry.
- Cartan
- Elie Joseph Cartan
(1869-1951). Born in Dolomien near Chambéry, France. Student at
l‘École Normale since 1888, he received his Ph.D. in 1894 with
a thesis in which he completed Killing’s classification of
semisimple algebras. He lectured at Montpellier (1894-1903), Lyon
(1896-1903), Nancy (1903-1909), and Paris (1909-1940). His
following work on the representation of semisimple Lie groups
combines group theory, classical geometry, differential geometry,
and topology. From 1904 he worked on differential equations and
differential geometry, and developed a theory of moving frames
(calculus of differential forms). He also contributed to the
geometry of symmetric spaces and published on general relativity
and its geometric extensions as well as on the theory of spinors.
For his Collected Works, cf. [41].
- van Dantzig
- David van Dantzig
(1900-1959). Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Studied mathematics at
the University of Amsterdam. Worked first on differential geometry,
electrodynamics and unified field theory. Known as co-founder, in
1946, of the Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam and by his role in
establishing mathematical statistics as a subdiscipline in the
Netherlands.
- Dienes
- Paul Dienes (1982-1952).
Born in Tokaj, Hungary. Studied mathematics. From 1929-1945 Reader,
and from 1945-48 Professor at Birkbeck College, University of
London.
- de Donder
- Théophile Ernest de
Donder (1872-1957). Born in Brussels. Studied mathematics and
physics at the University of Brussels and received his doctorate in
1899. Professor of mathematical physics at the Université libre de
Bruxelles from 1911 to 1942. Member of the Royal Belgian Academy.
Research on variational calculus, general relativity,
electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and wave mechanics.
- Eddington
- Arthur Stanley Eddington
(1882-1944). Born in Kendal, England. Studied mathematics at Owens
College, Manchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. After some work
in physics, moved into astronomy in 1905 and was appointed to the
Royal Observatory at Greenwich. From 1914 director of the Cambridge
Observatory. Fellow of the Royal Society. As a Quaker he became a
conscientious objector to military service during the First World
War. Eddington made important contributions to general relativity
and astrophysics (internal structure of stars). In 1918, he led an
eclipse expedition from which the first indications resulted that
Einstein’s general relativity theory was correct. Wrote also on
epistemology and the philosophy of science.
- Einstein
- Albert Einstein
(1879-1955). Born in Ulm, Württemberg (Germany). Studied physics
and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School (ETH)
Zurich and received his doctor’s degree in 1905. Lecturer at the
University of Bern (Switzerland), Professor in Zurich, Prague (then
belonging to Austria), Berlin (Germany) and Princeton (U.S.A.).
Nobel Prize 1921 for his work on the light-electric effect (photon
concept). Best known for his special and general relativity
theories. Important results in Brownian motion and the statistical
foundations of radiation as a quantum phenomenon. Worked for more
than 30 years on Unified Field Theory.
- Eisenhart
- Luther Pfahler Eisenhart
(1876-1965). Born in York, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Studied mathematics
at John Hopkins University, Baltimore and received his doctorate in
1900. Eisenhart taught at the University of Princeton from 1900,
was promoted to professor in 1909 and remained there (as Dean of
the mathematical Faculty and Dean of the Graduate School) until his
retirement in 1945. All his work is in differential geometry,
including Riemannian and non-Riemannian geometry and in group
theory.
- Eyraud
- Henri Eyraud (1892-1994).
Studied mathematics at the University of Paris and received his
doctorate in 1926 with a thesis on “Metrical spaces and
physico-geometrical theories”. From 1930 professor of mathematics
at the University of Lyon and director of the Institute of
“Financial and Assurance-Sciences”. Perhaps he considered his
papers on the geometry of unified field theory as a sin of his
youth: In Poggendorff, among the 33
papers listed, all are from his later main interest.
- Fock
- Vladimir Aleksandrovich
Fo(c)k (1898-1974). Born in St. Petersburg (renamed later
Petrograd and Leningrad). Studied at Petrograd University and spent
his whole carrier at this University. Member of the USSR Academy of
Sciences. Fundamental contributions to quantum theory (Fock space,
Hartree-Fock method); also worked in and defended general
relativity.
- Gonseth
- Ferdinand Gonseth
(1890-1975). Born in Sonvilier, Switzerland. Mathematician teaching
first at the University of Bern and then at the Federal Institute
of Technology (ETH) Zurich. His interest were in the foundations of
mathematics, geometry and in problems of space and time. With
G. Bachelard and P. Bernays he founded the philosophical
review journal Dialectica.
- Grommer
- Jakob Grommer
(1879-1933). Born near Brest, then in Russia. First a Talmud
student with a keen interest in mathematics. Came to Göttingen to
study mathematics and obtained his Ph.D. there. Worked with
Einstein for at least a decade (1917-1927) as his calculational
assistant. He held a university position in Minsk from 1929 on and
later became a member of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. From
his youth he was inflicted with elephantiasis.
- Hoffmann
- Banesh Hoffmann
(1906-1986). Born in Richmond, England. Studied mathematics and
theoretical physics at Oxford University and received his doctorate
in 1929. Became an assistant at Princeton University and worked
there with Einstein in 1932-1935. (His name supplied the “H” in the
EIH paper.) From 1939 professor at Queens College in New York. His
scientific interests were in relativity theory, tensor analysis,
and quantum theory.
- Infeld
- Leopold Infeld
(1889-1968). Born in Cracow, Poland. Studied at the University of
Cracow and received his doctorate in 1923. After teaching in
Lwow/Lemberg, he became professor of applied mathematics at the
University of Toronto in 1938. Worked on unitary field theory and
quantum electrodynamics, with van der Waerden on spinors, worked
with Born on non-linear electrodynamics, and with Einstein on
equations of motion (“EIH paper”).
- Kaluza
- Theodor Franz Eduard
Kaluza (1885-1954). Born in Ratibor, Germany (now Raciborz,
Poland). Studied mathematics at the University of Königsberg (now
Kaliningrad, Russia) and became a lecturer there in 1910. In 1929
he received a professorship at the University of Kiel, and in 1935
was made full professor at the University of Göttingen. He wrote
only a handful of mathematical papers and a textbook on “Higher
mathematics for the practician” (cf. [423]).
- O. Klein
- Oskar Klein (1894-1977).
Born in Mörby, Sweden. After work with Arrhenius in physical
chemistry, he met Kramers, then a student of Bohr, in 1917. Klein
worked with Bohr in the field of molecular physics and received his
doctorate in 1921 at Stockholm Högskola. His first research
position was at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he
worked on the Zeeman effect. Back in Europe from 1925, he taught at
Lund University and tried to connect Kaluza’s work with quantum
theory. In 1930 he became professor for mathematical physics at
Stockholm Högskola until retirement. His later work included
quantum theory (Klein-Nishina formula), superconductivity, and
cosmology.
- Kosambi
- Damodar D. Kosambi
(1907-1966). Of Indian origin; born in Goa he moved to America in
1918 with his learned father and graduated from Harvard University
in 1926 in mathematics, history and languages. Taught at the Muslim
University of Aligarh and, from 1932, at Ferguson College, Pune.
Mathematician, historian, and Sanskrit scholar.
- Lanczos
- Cornelius Lanczos (Kornél
Löwy) (1893-1974). Born in Székesfehérvár (Hungary). Studied
physics and mathematics at the University of Budapest with Eötvös,
Fejér, and Lax. Received his doctorate in 1921, became scientific
assistant at the University of Freiburg (Germany) and lecturer at
the University of Frankfurt am Main (Germany). Worked with Einstein
in Berlin 1928-1929, then returned to Frankurt. Became a visiting
professor at Purdue University in 1931 and came back on a
professorship in 1932. Worked mainly in mathematical physics and
numerical analysis. After 1944 he held various posts in industry
and in the National Bureau of Standards. Left the
U.S.A. during the McCarthy era and in 1952 followed an
invitation by Schrödinger to become head of the Theoretical Physics
Department of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Study.
- Levi-Civita
- Tullio Levi-Civita
(1873-1941). Born in Padua, Italy. Studied mathematics and received
his doctorate at the University of Padua. Was given the Chair of
Mechanics there and, in 1918, went to the University of Rome in the
same position. Together with Ricci, he developed tensor calculus
and introduced covariant differentiation. He worked also in the
mechanical many-body problem, in hydrodynamics, general relativity
theory, and unified field theory. Strongly opposed to Fascism in
Italy and dismissed from his professorship in 1938.
- Mandel
- Heinrich Mandel (1898-).
From 1928 lecturer at the University of Leningrad, and from 1931
research work at the Physics Institute of this
university.
- Mayer
- Walther Mayer
(1887-1948). Studied mathematics at the Federal Institute of
Technology in Zürich and at the University of Vienna where he wrote
his dissertation and became a Privatdozent (lecturer) with the
title “professor”. He had made himself a name in topology
(“Mayer-Vietoris sequences”), and worked also in differential
geometry (well-known textbook “Duschek-Mayer” on differential
geometry). In 1929 he became Einstein’s assistant with the explicit
understanding that he work with him on distant parallelism. It
seems that Mayer was appreciated much by Einstein and, despite
being in his forties, did accept this role as a collaborator of
Einstein. After coming to Princeton with Einstein in 1933, he got a
position at the Mathematical Institute of Princeton University and
became an associate of the Institute for Advanced Study. Wrote a
joint paper with T. Thomas on “Field of parallel vectors in
nonanalytic manifolds in the large.” Mayer died in
1948.
- Müntz
- As to the person of H. Müntz, it is not obvious whether he
can be identified with Dr. Ch. Müntz, a possibility following from
a paper of Ch. H. Müntz, presented to the Göttingen
Academy by D. Hilbert in 1917. If it is the same person, then
H. Müntz seems to have been a mathematics teacher, first at
the Odenwaldschule in Heppenheim a.d. B. from 1918 to
1922(?), then, possibly for a short time in Göttingen
(Friedländerweg 61), and from 1924 on in Berlin-Nikolassee,
Herkrathstr. 5. I conclude this from the membership lists of
the Deutsche Mathematikervereinigung, which Müntz entered in 1913,
and which gives a Berlin address since July 1924 and lists him as
“Prof.” in Berlin, in 1931. At the time, experienced teachers
at Gymnasium could carry the title of professor. In the Einstein
archive, 26 letters of Einstein to Müntz from the years 1927-1931
exist. The addresses show that Müntz went to Stockhom via Tallin.
In fact, Pais [240
] writes that Müntz became a
professor of mathematics at the University of Leningrad but had to
leave the Soviet Union in 1938 for Sweden. In fact, a document of
1931 states: “Prof. Hermann Mueninz, der einer der engeren
wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter Albert Einsteins ist und gegenwärtig
ein Lehramt für höhere Mathematik an der Leningrader Universität
bekleidet [...]” ([182
], Dokument 144,
p. 222). Sauer ([288
], p.11) reports the life span of
Müntz to have been 1884-1956.
- Pauli
- Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
(1900-1958). Born in Vienna, Austria. Studied at the University of
Munich with A. Sommerfeld who recognised his great gifts.
Received his doctorate in 1921 for a thesis on the quantum theory
of ionised molecular hydrogen. From October 1921 assistant of Max
Born in Göttingen. After a year with Bohr, Pauli, became a lecturer
at the University of Hamburg in 1923. In 1928 he was appointed
professor of theoretical physics at the Federal Institute of
Technology in Zürich. From 1945-1950 guest professor at the
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He then returned to
Zürich. Did important work in quantum mechanics, quantum field
theory and elementary particle theory (fourth quantum number
(spin), Pauli exclusion principle, prediction of neutrino). Fellow
of the Royal Society. Nobel Prize winner in 1954.
- Rainich
- George Yuri Rainich
(1886-1968). Of Russian origin. He studied mathematics at
universities in Odessa, Göttingen, and Munich, taking his final
exam at the University of Kazan in 1913. He then taught at Kazan
and Odessa until 1922, when he came to the United States of
America. He was a Johnston Scholar at Johns Hopkins University from
1923-1926 and then Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor, U.S.A.
- Reichenbach
- Hans Reichenbach
(1891-1953). Philosopher of science, neo-positivist. Professor in
Berlin, Istanbul, and Los Angeles. Wrote books on the foundations
of relativity theory, probability, and quantum
mechanics.
- Reichenbächer
- Ernst Reichenbächer
(1881-1944). Studied mathematics and received his doctorate from
the University of Halle in 1903 under the guidance of Albert
Wangerin (a student of Franz Neumann in Königsberg). At first,
Reichenbächer did not enter an academic career, but started
teaching in a Gymnasium in Wilhelmshaven in North Germany, then in
Königsberg on the Baltic Sea. In 1929 he became a Privatdozent
(lecturer) at the University of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad,
Russia). His courses covered special and general relativity, the
physics of fixed stars and galaxies with a touch on cosmology, and
quantum mechanics. In the fifth year of World War II he finally
received the title of professor at the University Königsberg, but
in the same year was killed during a bombing raid on the
city.
- Schouten
- Jan Arnoldus Schouten
(1883-1971). Born near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Studied
electrical engineering at the Technical University (Hogeschool) of
Delft and then mathematics at the University of Leiden. His
doctoral thesis of 1914 was on tensor analysis, a topic he worked
on during his entire academic career. From 1914 until 1943 he held
a professorship in mathematics at the University of Delft, and from
1948 to 1953 he was director of the Mathematical Research Centre at
the University of Amsterdam. He was a prolific writer, applying
tensor analysis to Lie groups, general relativity, unified field
theory, and differential equations.
- Struik
- Dirk J. Struik
(1894-2000). Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Studied
mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden with Lorentz
and de Sitter. Received his doctorate in 1922. Then worked with
Schouten at the University of Delft and, with a Rockefeller
International Education Fellowship, moved to Rome and Göttingen.
After a collaboration with Wiener, in 1926 he received a
lectureship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
Cambridge, Ma. where he became full professor in 1940. He
stayed on the MIT mathematics faculty until 1960. As a professed
Marxist he was suspended from teaching duties during the McCarthy
period but was reinstated in 1956. In 1972, he became an honorary
research associate in the History of Science Department of Harvard
University.
- J. M. Thomas
- Joseph Miller Thomas
(1898-1979). Studied mathematics in Philadelphia at the University
of Pennsylvania. Received his doctorate in 1923. From 1927
assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, from 1930
assistant and in 1935 full professor of mathematics at the Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina. His fields were differential
geometry and partial differential equations. He was the principle
founder of Duke Mathematical Journal.
- T. Y. Thomas
- Tracy Yerkes Thomas
(1899-1983). Born in Alton, Illinois, U.S.A.: Studied mathematics
at Princeton University and received his doctorate in 1923.
Professor at Princeton, then from 1938-1944 at the University of
California in Los Angeles, and since 1944 professor and chairman of
the mathematics department at Indiana University in Bloomington,
U.S.A.
- Vallarta
- Manuel Sandoval Vallarta
(1899-1977). Born in Mexico City. He studied at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), where he received his degree in
science and specialised in theoretical physics (1924). With a
scholarship from the Guggenheim Foundation (1927-1928), he studied
physics in Berlin and Leipzig. From 1923 to 1946, he worked as an
assistant, associate, and regular professor at the MIT, and guest
professor at the Lovaina University in Belgium (Cooperation with
Lemaître). From 1943, he divided his time between MIT and the
School of Sciences and the Institute of Physics of the National
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His main contributions were
in mathematic methods, quantum mechanics, general relativity and,
from 1932, cosmic rays.
- Veblen
- Oswald Veblen
(1880-1960). Born in Decorah, Iowa, U.S.A. Entered the University
of Iowa in 1894, receiving his B.A. in 1898. He obtained his
doctorate from the University of Chicago on “a system of axioms in
geometry” in 1903. He taught mathematics at Princeton (1905-1932),
at Oxford in 1928-1929, and became a professor at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton in 1932. Veblen made important
contribution to projective and differential geometry, and to
topology. He gave a new treatment of spin.
- Weitzenböck
- Roland Weitzenböck
(1885-1955). Studied mathematics at the University of Vienna where
he obtained his doctoral degree in 1910. Became a professional
officer during the First World War. He obtained professorships in
Graz and Vienna and, in 1921, at the University of Amsterdam. He
specialised in the theory of invariants (cf. [156]).
- Weyl
- Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl
(1885-1955). Born in Elmshorn, Germany. Studied at the Universities
of Munich and Göttingen where he received his doctorate in 1908
(Hilbert was his supervisor). From 1913 he held the Chair of
Mathematics at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, and
from 1930 to 1933 a corresponding Chair at the University of
Göttingen. Then until retirement he worked at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton. Weyl made important contributions in
mathematics (integral equations, Riemannian surfaces, continuous
groups, analytic number theory) and theoretical physics
(differential geometry, unified field theory, gauge theory). For
his papers, cf. also the Collected Works [411]
- Wiener
- Norbert Wiener
(1894-1964). Born in Columbia, Missouri, U.S.A. Studied at Tufts
College and Harvard University and received his doctorate with a
dissertation on mathematical logic. He continued his studies in
Cambridge, England and in Göttingen. From 1918 instructor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he first studied
Brownian motion. Wiener had a wide range of interests, from
harmonic analysis to communications theory and
cybernetics.
- Wirtinger
- Wilhelm Wirtinger
(1865-1945). Born in Ybbs, Austria. Studied mathematics at the
University of Vienna. Received his doctorate in 1887, and continued
his studies at the Universities of Berlin and of Göttingen. From
1895 a full professor at the University of Vienna, but accepted
professorship at University of Innsbruck, returning to Vienna only
in 1905. Wrote an important paper on the general theta function and
had an exceptional range in mathematics (function theory, algebra,
number theory, plane geometry, theory of invariants).
- Zaycoff
- Gawrilow Raschko Zaycoff
(1901-1982). Born in Burgas, Bulgaria. Studied at the Universities
of Sofia, Göttingen, and Berlin from 1922 to 1928. From 1928
assistant in the Physics Institute of the University of Sofia;
1931-1933 teacher at a Gymnasium in Sofia. From 1935 on
mathematical statistician at the Institute for Economic Research of
Sofia University. From 1961-1972 Professor at the Physics Institute
of the Bulgarian Academy of Science