Alfred Loewy

Alfred Loewy ( born June 20, 1873 in Rawitsch at Posen; † January 25, 1935 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German mathematician.

Life

Loewy, who comes from a strictly orthodox Jewish family, attended from 1891 to 1895, the universities of Breslau, Munich, Berlin and Göttingen. In 1894, he was with Ferdinand Lindemann earned his doctorate at the University of Munich (On the transformation of a quadratic form in itself with applications to the lines and spherical geometry). In 1897 he habilitated at the Albert -Ludwigs- University of Freiburg, where he became associate professor in 1902, 1916 and 1919 Honorary Professor Professor. In 1933 he was forced to retire by the Nazis. Loewy had problems with his eyes and was one-sided and completely blind after a botched operation in 1928 since 1916.

Loewy worked on linear substitution groups, the reduction of algebraic equations, and Galois theory, the theory of linear homogeneous differential equations ( where he applied methods of group theory ) and Stieltjesintegralen. He also dealt with insurance mathematics.

His doctoral include Wolfgang Krull and Friedrich Karl Schmidt and his students Ernst Witt, Bernhard Neumann, Richard Brauer, Reinhold Baer.

He was the uncle by marriage of the mathematician Adolf Fraenkel, whom he promoted systematically.

Loewy in 1912 was appointed a member of the Leopoldina.

Writings

• Textbook of Algebra, 1915
• Foundations of Arithmetic 1915
• Mathematics of money and payments, 1920