Mathematics in Berlin

ISBN-13: 9783764359430 / Angielski / Miękka / 1998 / 216 str.

H. Begehr; Henrich G. W. Begehr; N. Schappacher

Opis

This little book is conceived as a service to mathematicians attending the 1998 International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin. It presents a comprehensive, condensed overview of mathematical activity in Berlin, from Leibniz almost to the present day (without, however, including biographies of living mathematicians). Since many towering figures in mathematical history worked in Berlin, most of the chapters of this book are concise biographies. These are held together by a few survey articles presenting the overall development of entire periods of scientific life at Berlin. Overlaps between various chapters and differences in style between the chap- ters were inevitable, but sometimes this provided opportunities to show different aspects of a single historical event - for instance, the Kronecker-Weierstrass con- troversy. The book aims at readability rather than scholarly completeness. There are no footnotes, only references to the individual bibliographies of each chapter. Still, we do hope that the texts brought together here, and written by the various authors for this volume, constitute a solid introduction to the history of Berlin mathematics.

Recenzje

"Much more than a souvenir booklet; experts provide not only very readable thumbnail sketches of a wide range of topics, but also bibliographies which make this a substantial introduction to further literature."

--Mathematical Reviews

Spis treści

Mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences 1700–1810.- Mathematics in Berlin, 1810–1933.- Augustus Leopold Crelle.- Gustav Peter Lejeune Dirichlet.- Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi.- Jacob Steiner and Synthetic Geometry.- Gotthold Eisenstein.- Kummer and Kronecker.- Weierstrass and some members of his circle: Kovalevskaia, Fuchs, Schwarz, Schottky.- Frobenius, Schur, and the Berlin Algebraic Tradition.- Erhard Schmidt, John von Neumann.- Constantin Carathéodory.- Richard von Mises.- Einstein in Berlin.- The Nazi era: the Berlin way of politicizing mathematics.- The University of Berlin from Reopening until 1953.- Helmut Hasse, Hermann Ludwig Schmid and their students in Berlin.- Freie Universität Berlin, a summary of its history.- Mathematics at the Berlin Technische Hochschule/Technische Universität.- Mathematics in Berlin at the Humboldt University: from 1953 until now.- The Mathematical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR.- Fast Algorithms, Fast Computers: The Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum Berlin (ZIB).- Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS).- Zentralblatt für Mathematik und ihre Grenzgebiete.- Sources of photographs.- Addresses of authors and editors.