Johann Gustav Hermes

Johann Gustav Hermes ( born June 20, 1846 in Königsberg, † June 8, 1912 in Bad Oeynhausen ) was a German mathematician.

Life

After the matriculation examination in 1866 at the Kneiphof Gymnasium in Königsberg Hermes studied from 1866 to 1870, also in Königsberg, mathematics. He completed his studies after a break by participating in the German - French War (1870-1871) on 14 December 1872, the state exam in mathematics and a Ph.D. on April 5, 1879 with a dissertation on the " recycling of the problem of the divided circle on linear equations ( for prime numbers of the form 2m 1) ".

After a probationary year at secondary school Insterburg Hermes worked from 1873 as a teacher at the Royal Progymnasium orphanage at Konigsberg in Prussia, from 1883 as a senior teacher. In 1893 he became a professor at the Gymnasium Georgianum in Lingen, on April 1, 1899 finally Professor and Director at the secondary school Osnabruck (now Ernst- Moritz- Arndt -Gymnasium ). On 31 December 1906 he asked for due to illness early release from active duty. After his death he was buried on June 12, 1912 in Osnabrück.

Special performance

In 1889 Hermes completed his lasting over a decade efforts to find a method for the construction of the regular 65537 -gon solely with compass and ruler and write down. His large-format, 200 -page manuscript is now kept in the University of Göttingen in one of his time specially -built case.

In his introductory speech as director of the secondary school Osnabrück on April 11, 1899, he praised the concept of duty, Kant ( the great philosopher Immanuel Kant was Königsberg like him) and concluded with the words: ". Patience is the gate of joy"

Publications

• As to the division of the circle into 65 537 equal parts. In: News from the Society of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematics and Physical class. Göttingen 1894, pp. 170-186.
• Equations of the first and second degree schematically dissolved in whole numbers. B. G. Teubner, Leipzig 1882