Heinrich Scherk

Heinrich Ferdinand Scherk ( born October 27, 1798 in Poznan, † October 4, 1885 in Bremen ) was a German mathematician and astronomer.

Biography

Scherk came to Breslau in 1809 and attended the Mary Magdalene attended high school, which was led by Johann Kaspar Friedrich Manso. Even here, he received the first suggestions to deal with mathematics and astronomy. At the age of 20 years Scherk left the school with the Abitur and studied at the new Silesian Friedrich Wilhelm University in Breslau, among others, Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes. In 1820 he spent two years at the Albertus University of Königsberg, where Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel his teacher and patron was. From this period Scherks first works on astronomy come. They appeared in the book edited by Johann Elert Bode Astronomical Yearbook and in the company founded by Heinrich Christian Schumacher Astronomische Nachrichten.

Scherk went in 1822 to Carl Friedrich Gauss at the Georg August University of Göttingen. With an already begun with Bessel doctoral thesis, he received his doctorate in 1823 at the Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität Berlin with Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes. In the same year Scherk married. The couple had eight children.

A year later ( 1824) he completed his habilitation in Königsberg. 1825 published in Berlin his four mathematical treatises.

Hall

On the recommendation of Bessel Friedrich -University Halle Scherk appointed in 1826 as ao Professor. With important contributions in the Journal for Pure and Applied Mathematics from August Crelle he won another reputation. He became a member and, most recently director of the Royal Scientific Examination Board for the Province of Saxony. At that time also emerged today quoted work on minimal surfaces and the distribution of prime numbers. 1831 Scherk was appointed Full Professor of the University of Halle. At his own request, he retired in 1833 from the service of the Kingdom of Prussia.

Keel

He went as a full professor of mathematics and astronomy at the Christian -Albrechts- University of Kiel in the Duchy of Holstein, then part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Scherk was the successor of Nicholas Theodore Reimer. In 1835 he was also administrator of the University 's assets here. 1841/42 1842 /43 and 1848/49 he was rector of the CAU.

Although 1840 was knighted the Dannebrog Order, Scherk committed in 1848 in the Schleswig -Holstein survey. After the defeat of the Schleswig- Holstein army, he was dismissed from all his offices in 1852 and dismissed from the Danish civil service. As efforts to reinstatement in hall or Kiel were unsuccessful, he took until his retirement in 1874 a teaching job at the Business School (Bremen ) to. He died shortly before his 87th birthday.

Work

As the first by Leonard Euler ( catenary catenoid, 1744) and Jean -Baptiste Meusnier de la Place ( helicoid or spiral surface, 1776) discovered a new Scherk minimal surface. The minimal surface of Scherk was published in 1835 in a price work for the Académie des sciences.

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