Thomas Joannes Stieltjes
Thomas Stieltjes Jean ( born December 29, 1856 in Zwolle, The Netherlands, † December 31, 1894 in Toulouse ) was a Dutch mathematician.
During his studies, Stieltjes has mainly dealt with the work of Gauss and Jacobi. His interest lay in the areas of analysis, continued fractions and number theory. After the term of the Stieltjes Stieltjesintegrals is named, the generalizes the integral term of Bernhard Riemann ( Riemann integral) and a special case of Lebesgueintegrals (after Henri Léon Lebesgue ).
Life
Stieltjes ' father Thomas was responsible as a civil engineer for the construction of various ports around Rotterdam and sat at the same time in the States-General, the Dutch Parliament. Stieltjes Jr. studied from 1873 at the Polytechnic in Delft. Rather than attend lectures, he sat mainly with the work of Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi apart, which, however, resulted that he failed his exams. Nevertheless, he received thanks to his friendship with his father HG van de Sande Bakhuyzen (1838-1923), the rector of the University of Leiden, an assistant at Leiden Observatory.
A short time later Stieltjes began a lifelong correspondence with Charles Hermite. First, the subject was celestial mechanics, but quickly changed to mathematics, to which he devoted his spare time.
Van de Sande - Bakhuyzen announced on January 1, 1883 instead of Stieltjes ' request to abandon the work at the observatory, and experiment to deal with mathematics. In May of the same year Stieltjes Elizabeth Intveld, who also supported his move from astronomy to mathematics married. In September, he was offered a professorship at the University of Delft, where he then until December lectured on analytical geometry and descriptive geometry. At the end he resigned his commission at the observatory.
In 1884 he applied for a professorship in Groningen. First, given that he was dismissed for lack of a diploma by the Ministry of Education. Hermite and Professor Bierens de Haan then ensured that he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Leiden, which should pave the way to a professorship. In 1885 he was honorary in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences ( Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, KNAW ) was added, and received in 1889 the chair of differential and integral calculus at the University of Toulouse. There he died at the age of only 38 years of flu.
1992 Mathematical Research Institute at Leiden University was named after him. It went on in 2011 in the newly created Dutch Mathematics Research Institute WONDER ( ONDERzoekschool Wiskunde Nederland). 2002 Asteroid ( 30443 ) Stieltjes was named after him.
Writings
- Correspondence d' Hermite et de Stieltjes, 2 volumes, Gauthier -Villars 1905, Volume 1, Volume 2
- Oeuvres, edited by the Royal Wiskundig Genootschap ( Société d' mathématique Amsterdam), Groningen, Noordhoff, 2 volumes, 1914, 1918, Volume 1, Volume 2