Walter Ledermann

Walter Ledermann ( born March 18, 1911 in Berlin, † 22 May, 2009 London ) was a German-born British mathematician who worked on algebra and probability theory.

Ledermann came from a Jewish family and attended high school in Berlin. In 1928 he made ​​at the Leibniz high school the high school and studied to be a teacher with the aim, among other things, at Isay Schur, Erhard Schmidt, Richard von Mises, Erwin Schrödinger, Heinz Hopf, Erwin Schrödinger and Max Planck at the Humboldt University of Berlin physics and mathematics. In 1931, he also studied for a semester in Marburg. He put in Schur and Ludwig Bieberbach in 1933 his state exams and then left Nazi Germany. He continued his studies with a scholarship at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he received his doctorate in 1936 with Herbert Westren Turnbull in matrix theory. In 1937 he was Lecturer in Dundee and was at this time private ( mathematical ) assistant professor of psychology Godfrey Thompson in Edinburgh, which he received in 1940 from the University of Edinburgh a doctorate degree (D. Sc.). He also worked with Max Born and Alexander Aitken in Edinburgh. In 1938 he was assistant to Turnbull in St. Andrews, where he remained until 1946.

In 1940 he became a British citizen.

In 1946 he was a lecturer at the University of Manchester, where he was secretary of the British Mathematical Colloquium first. In Manchester, we also saw the collaboration with Harry Reuter (also a refugee from Germany ) using stochastic processes. Most recently he was Senior Lecturer in Manchester. In 1962 he was Reader at the newly founded University of Sussex, where he became professor in 1965 and emeritus in 1978.

From 1979 he lived in London.

In addition to probability theory and linear algebra, he dealt with homology theory, group theory and number theory. 1968 to 1971 he was editor of the Journal of the London Mathematical Society from 1974 to 1977 and the Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society. In 1944 he was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was an honorary doctorate from the Open University (1993).

Writings

  • Introduction to the Theory of Finite Groups, Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, Interscience 1949, 1953, 1957
  • Complex numbers, London, Routledge and Paul 1960
  • Integral calculus, Dover 1964
  • Multiple integrals, London, Routledge and Paul, Dover 1966
  • Introduction to group theory, Oliver and Boyd 1973, Addison -Wesley, second edition 1996
  • Introduction to group characters, Cambridge University, 1977, 1987
  • As the main editor: Handbook of applicable mathematics, 10 volumes, Wiley, 1980-1991
May 22 Issai Schur Integrated Authority File
812094
de