Farkas Bolyai

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The native form of this personal name is Bolyai Farkas. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Farkas Bolyai
Hungarian
Alma materUniversity of Jena
University of Göttingen
Known forContributions to the foundations of geometry
Wallace–Bolyai–Gerwien theorem
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
Academic advisorsAbraham Gotthelf Kästner
Notable studentsJános Bolyai

Farkas Bolyai (Hungarian: [ˈfɒrkɒʃ ˈboːjɒi]; 9 February 1775 – 20 November 1856; also known as Wolfgang Bolyai in Germany) was a Hungarian mathematician, mainly known for his work in geometry.

Biography

Bolyai was born in Bolya, a village near

Latin, Greek, Romanian, Hebrew and later also French, Italian and English. He easily multiplied, divided 13- or 14-digit numbers in his head, and was able to draw square and cubic roots from them.[1] At the age of 12 he left school and was appointed as a tutor to the eight-year-old son of the count Kemény. This meant that Bolyai was now treated as a member of one of the leading families in the country, and he became not only a tutor but a real friend to the count's son. In 1790 Bolyai and his pupil both entered the Calvinist College in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca
) where they spent five years.

The professor of philosophy at the College in Kolozsvár tried to turn Bolyai against mathematics and towards religious philosophy. Bolyai, however, decided to go abroad with Simon Kemény on an educational trip in 1796 and began to study mathematics systematically at German universities first at Jena and then at Göttingen. In these times Bolyai became a close friend of Carl Friedrich Gauss.

He returned home to Kolozsvár in 1799. It was there he met and married Zsuzsanna Benkő and where their son

Târgu-Mureş
), where he spent the rest of his life.

Mathematical work

Bolyai's main interests were the foundations of

parallel axiom
.

His main work, Tentamen juventutem studiosam in elementa matheseos purae, elementaris ac sublimioris, methodo intuitiva, evidentiaque huic propria, introducendi (An Attempt to Introduce Studious Youths to the Elements of Pure Mathematics; 1832),

Raabe's test, which he discovered independently and at about the same time as Raabe. Other important ideas in the work include a general definition of a function and a definition of an equality between two plane figures if they can both be divided into a finite equal number of pairwise congruent
pieces.

He first dissuaded his son from the study of non-Euclidean geometry, but by 1832 he became enthusiastic enough to persuade his son to publish his path-breaking thoughts. János's ideas were published an appendix to the Tentamen.

Notes

  1. ^ Szénássy, Barna (1975). Bolyai Farkas (1775-1856). Budapest: Akadémiai kiadó. p. 17.
  2. ^ Online version

References

  • (in Romanian) A. Todea, F. Maria, M. Avram, Oameni de știință mureșeni - Dicționar biobibliografic, CJ Mureș Biblioteca Județeană Mureș, tipografia Mediaprint SRL, 2004

External links

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