Ferdinand von Lindemann
Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann ( born April 12, 1852 in Hannover, † March 6, 1939 in Munich) was a German mathematician.
Life and work
The Lindemann family moved in 1854 to to Schwerin, where the father took up a job in a leading position in the gas factory of his brother. F. Lindemann put his Abitur in 1870 in Schwerin and started in the winter semester 1870/71 the study of mathematics in Göttingen. In the summer semester 1871 Lindemann heard the lectures of Alfred Clebsch and made detailed records thereof. These were later used under the supervision of Felix Klein as the basis for a book about the geometrical lectures Clebsch, the scientific and friends of Clebsch after his death in 1872 stimulated. Felix Klein and Ferdinand Lindemann heard the lectures Clebsch at the same time. In order to write together with small book, Lindemann Klein followed at the University of Erlangen, where he received his doctorate in 1873 with a thesis on the motion of a rigid body in a non-Euclidean geometry.
After a stay at the Polytechnic School of Munich and a study trip to England and France, F. Lindemann habilitated in Würzburg. From there followed Lindemann a call to Freiburg, where he was a follower of Ludwig Kiepert received in 1877 as an associate professor. 1879 Lindemann was the successor of John Thomae as a full professor; also in Freiburg. From this time (1882 ) comes to be proof that the circuit number is a transcendental number ( see Theorem of Lindemann - Weierstrass ); it was followed by the first time a proof of the impossibility of squaring the circle.
As a reward for this discovery was followed by a call to the Albertus University of Königsberg, the Lindemann adopted on 1 October 1883. The mathematics was driven there in the 19th century of global importance. To get Lindemann to Königsberg, extraordinary efforts have been made. So Lindemann was awarded a professorship, which he held with Adolf Hurwitz; he had trouble getting a solid university position because of his Jewish ancestry. 1892/93 Lindemann was Vice-Rector of the Albertus University of Königsberg.
Lindemann married in Königsberg, the actress Lisbeth Küssner. From this marriage the children Reinhard Lindemann went (1889-1911) and Irmgard Lindemann (1891-1971) produced. Lindemann translated along with his wife scientific works of foreign language. Among the work La Science et l' Hypothèse was the French mathematician Henri Poincaré.
1893 Lindemann was appointed to the Ludwig- Maximilians- University in Munich, where he remained for the rest of his life and during the years 1904/ 05 held the office of the rector. The physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg originally wanted to study mathematics and to actually put in Munich at Lindemann before; the brash approach of Heisenberg and his interest in mathematical methods in modern physics, however, led to the fact that Lindemann ended the conversation harshly with the sentence: "Then you are already spoiled for mathematics anyway ."
He is also known by the multitude of his disciples, under which big names like David Hilbert, Hermann Minkowski, Arnold Sommerfeld, Martin Wilhelm Kutta and Fritz Cohn are to be found. At his suggestion Friedrich Böhm first offered courses in actuarial mathematics at. He also pushed for the modernization of teaching in Germany, for example, through the use of seminars and the latest research results.
Lindemann was at the Munich Waldfriedhof buried (old part, grave 043 -W -9).
Works
- Ferdinand Lindemann: About the number π, Mathematische Annalen, Vol 20, 213-225 (1882).