Adolf Hurwitz

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Adolf Hurwitz
Albertus Universität Königsberg
Doctoral advisorFelix Klein
Doctoral studentsErnst Amberg
L. Gustave du Pasquier

Adolf Hurwitz (German: [ˈaːdɔlf ˈhʊʁvɪts]; 26 March 1859 – 18 November 1919) was a German mathematician who worked on algebra, analysis, geometry and number theory.

Early life

He was born in

Jewish family and died in Zürich, in Switzerland. His father Salomon Hurwitz, a merchant, was not wealthy. Hurwitz's mother, Elise Wertheimer, died when he was three years old.[1] Family records indicate that he had siblings and cousins, but their names have yet to be confirmed except for an older brother, Julius, with whom he developed an arithmetical theory for complex continued fractions circa 1890.[2] Hurwitz entered the Realgymnasium Andreanum [de] in Hildesheim in 1868. He was taught mathematics there by Hermann Schubert.[3] Schubert persuaded Hurwitz's father to allow him to attend university, and arranged for Hurwitz to study with Felix Klein at Munich.[3]
Salomon Hurwitz could not afford to send his son to university, but his friend, Mr. Edwards, assisted financially.

Educational career

Hurwitz entered the

University of Berlin where he attended classes by Kummer, Weierstrass and Kronecker,[1]
after which he returned to Munich.

In October 1880, Felix Klein moved to the

ETH Zürich) in 1892 (having to turn down a position at Göttingen shortly after[1]
), and remained there for the rest of his life.

Throughout his time in Zürich, Hurwitz was in continual ill health, which had been originally caused when he contracted

migraines
, and then in 1905, his kidneys became diseased and he had one removed.

Contributions to mathematics

Adolf Hurwitz

He was one of the early students of the

Edward John Routh who had derived it earlier by a different method.[4]
In Lie theory, Hurwitz proved the existence of the Haar measure on Lie groups (which Haar then extended to locally compact groups).[5]

Family

In 1884, whilst at Königsberg, Hurwitz met and married Ida Samuel, the daughter of a professor in the faculty of medicine. They had three children.

Selected publications

  • Hurwitz, A., 1898. Ueber die Composition der quadratischen Formen von beliebig vielen Variablen. Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, 1898, pp. 309–316.
  • Vorlesungen über allgemeine Funktionentheorie und elliptische Funktionen (= Die Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften in Einzeldarstellungen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Anwendungsgebiete. vol. 3,
    ISSN 0072-7830). Edited and supplemented by a section on geometric Funktionentheorie by Richard Courant. Springer, Berlin 1922 (4th, extended and edition with an appendix by Helmut Röhrl, ibid 1964, online text
    )
  • Mathematische Werke. Publlished by the Department of Mathematics and Physics of the Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule in Zürich. 2 vols. Birkhäuser, Basel 1932–1933 (with a memoir on Hurwitz by Ernst Meissner)
  • Übungen zur Zahlentheorie. 1891–1918 (= Schriftenreihe der ETH-Bibliothek. vol. 32,
    doi:10.3929/ethz-a-001313794
    .
  • Lectures on Number Theory. Edited for publication by Nikolaos Kritikos. Translated with some additional material (from the German) by William C. Schulz. Springer, New York 1986,
    ISBN 0-387-96236-0
    .
  • ISBN 3-528-06334-3
    .

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Adolf Hurwitz", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  2. S2CID 123512496
    .
  3. ^ a b Weierstrass, K. (1988). Einleitung in die Theorie der analytischen Funktionen. Braunschweig.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ISBN 0070482896
    .
  5. JSTOR 1968346

External links

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