Erik Ivar Fredholm

Erik Ivar Fredholm ( born April 7, 1866 in Stockholm, † August 17 1927 in Mörby in Stockholm ) was a Swedish mathematician. He founded in 1903 the modern theory of integral equations, which is also called after him Fredholm theory. According to him also the Fredholm operator is named.

Fredholm was the son of a businessman who made a fortune in the introduction of electric lighting in Sweden. He studied at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, what with him left a lifelong interest in applied mathematics, and at the University of Uppsala. That was the only Swedish university, the doctoral degrees awarded, but in reality he studied with Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler in Stockholm, where he received his doctorate in 1893 ( and again in 1898) ( in Uppsala ). He was then a lecturer at the University of Stockholm. Mittag-Leffler was impressed by the work of Fredholm so that some he sent to Henri Poincaré in Paris and 1899 Fredholm was even a year in Paris at Poincaré, Émile Picard and Jacques Hadamard. There he developed in the study of the Dirichlet problem of potential theory its Fredholm theory of integral equations, the generalized previous approaches. The theory was soon after the turn of the century known in Göttingen (1901 through lectures by Holmgren ), where it was picked up and developed by David Hilbert. Fredholm, who was inspired by Vito Volterra and Poincaré, transferred ideas of linear algebra to the case of infinitely many equations and variables. His main work, in which he presented his theory was Sur une classe d' equations fonctionelles ( Acta Mathematica, 1893).

Since 1906 he was professor of mechanics and mathematical physics at the University of Stockholm, which also had the main interests of Fredholm - reflected many of his mathematical works have their origin in problems of mathematical physics. At university he was temporarily dean. In addition to his professorship, he was employed in the Swedish state-owned insurance company and the insurance industry and served in various public offices. Also, as a scientist, he shifted his interest from about 1902 on insurance mathematics.

He was married in 1911 and had a son who built his military career.

The asteroid ( 21659 ) Fredholm and the moon crater Fredholm were named after him. In 1909 he became an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig and in 1908 he was awarded the Poncelet Prize of the French Academy of Sciences.

His collected works ( Oeuvres ) published in 1955 in Malmö.