Alexander Dinghas

Alexander Dinghas ( born February 9, 1908 in Smyrna (Izmir), † April 19, 1974 in Berlin) was a Greek -born German mathematician.

Life and work

Dinghas was the son of an elementary school teacher and went to Athens, where the family moved in 1922 from Smyrna, to the Gymnasium. From 1925 he studied mechanical and electrical engineering in Athens (Diploma 1930) and from 1931 mathematics, physics and philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1936 Erhard Schmidt ( "Contributions to the theory of meromorphic functions"). In 1939 he qualified as a professor there. Since he was not a German citizen, his career in Berlin was initially hampered. In 1947 he became a full professor at the Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin in 1949, a time as director of the Mathematical Institute. In 1951, he was beside honorary professor at the Technical University Berlin. He has been a visiting professor at Fordham University in New York and Columbia University ( 1953).

Dinghas dealt primarily with function theory ( Nevanlinna theory, growth of subharmonic functions). He also dealt with differential equations and differential geometry ( like his teacher Schmidt, he worked on the Isoperimetric problem in spaces of constant curvature ).

1931 to 1949, he was married to divorce with pianist Fanny Grafiadou. 1962 to 1966 and 1969 to 1971 he was chairman of the Berlin Mathematical Society. He was a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, member of the Finnish (1973) and the Norwegian Academies of Sciences ( 1957).

Writings

• Lectures on Complex Analysis, Springer 1961
• Minkowski sums and integrals. Super Functional Additives amount. Isoperimetric inequalities ( 1961)
• Introduction to the Cauchy- Weierstrass function theory, BI, 1968
• For the differential geometry of the classical fundamental domains, Springer 1974