Mathias Lerch
Matyas Lerch ( born February 20, 1860 in Milínov; † August 3, 1922 in Schüttenhofen ), was a Czech mathematician.
Life
Matyas Lerch came from the family of a small farmer. As a small child he had an accident and was able to move up from the age of six, only with a walker. The accident also meant that he was only the first time was able to go to school at age nine. He showed from the beginning a great talent for mathematics. After attending the public school, he worked briefly as a clerk in the factory František Scheinost. Despite economic difficulties, he opted for another school. After successful entrance examination and exceptional exam results he obtained permission to visit the fifth year of high school in Pilsen. His high school, he put 1880 on the Real Gymnasium in Rakonitz from. Even while attending school at the high school he studied self-taught him all the books on mathematics.
In 1880 he enrolled at the Technical University in Prague as ordinary students of civil engineering. He studied for three years, among other things with Eduard Weyr, Gabriel Blazek and František Tilšer.
He originally wanted to be a teacher after college, but this was not because of his disability and, therefore, devoted himself entirely to mathematics. From 1883 to 1884 he attended lectures by Professor František Josef Studnička who found great favor to the students. A year later, Lerch received a scholarship and studied in Berlin, among others, Karl Weierstrass, Leopold Kronecker, Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs and Carl Runge. Here he also met young mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya and as Arthur Karl Wilhelm Heffter know. After his return he completed his habilitation in 1886 and became a lecturer at the Prague TH. At the same time he started his journalistic activity. Between 1886 and 1896 he published 110 papers at home and abroad. At the same time his works were read by renowned mathematicians, as well as by the Frenchman Charles Hermite, who valued his scientific work in public high.
Despite numerous efforts to establish a professorship at a Czech university, he could not do that throughout his career. 1896 so he accepted the offer of the Swiss University of Fribourg. He taught the next ten years here. At the same time his financial situation improved, he could not afford an operation by which he no longer needed his crutch. 1906, after appointment as professor in the Moravian Technical University in Brno, he returned to the Czech Republic. 1920 he was appointed to the Masaryk University in Brno.
After his return, he has been honored in his home. He was elected an honorary member of the Association of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists and received in 1909 the honorary Doctor of Philosophy University of Prague. At this time it was him but poorer health. He suffered from diabetes, then incurable because the insulin was not discovered yet. For health reasons, so he had to decline the post of rector of the Brno University of Technology. Finally, he sat down with his assistant Otakar Borůvka for the building of the Mathematical Institute of the Masaryk University. During his holiday trip, he died of pneumonia.
In 1900, Matyas Lerch received the so-called big prize of the Académie des Sciences for his work in number theory.