Arthur Rosenthal (24 February 1887,

Fürth Fürth (; East Franconian: ; yi, פיורדא, Fiurda) is a city in northern Bavaria, Germany, in the administrative division ('' Regierungsbezirk'') of Middle Franconia. It is now contiguous with the larger city of Nuremberg, the centres of ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

– 15 September 1959,

Lafayette, Indiana Lafayette ( , ) is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette, Indiana, West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home t ...

) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

Career

Rosenthal's mathematical studies started in 1905 in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, under

Ferdinand Lindemann Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann (12 April 1852 – 6 March 1939) was a German mathematician, noted for his proof, published in 1882, that (pi) is a transcendental number, meaning it is not a root of any polynomial with rational coef ...

and

Arnold Sommerfeld Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, (; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretic ...

at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: link=no, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of ...

and the

Technical University Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

, as well as at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...

. After submitting his thesis on

regular polyhedra A regular polyhedron is a polyhedron whose symmetry group acts transitively on its flags. A regular polyhedron is highly symmetrical, being all of edge-transitive, vertex-transitive and face-transitive. In classical contexts, many different equiv ...

in 1909, he was promoted to assistant at the Technical University in 1911 and then associate professor in the University of Munich in 1920. The following year he was appointed associate professor in the University of Heidelberg, with a promotion to full professor in 1930. Between 1932 and 1933 he served as dean in the faculty of mathematics and natural sciences, but was forced from his university position as a result of

Nazi policies Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

against German Jews. He moved to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in 1936 and from there emigrated to the United States in 1939. He was appointed lecturer and research fellow at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1940 with a promotion to assistant professor in 1943. In 1946 he became associate professor at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25, ...

and the following year moved to the

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

as full professor, where he remained until his retirement in 1957. In 1954 he was formally reinstated in the University of Heidelberg. A scholarship at Purdue University is named in his honor. His doctoral students include Theodore Chihara.

Research

Rosenthal's mathematical research was in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

, in particular the classification of regular polyhedra and

Hilbert's axioms Hilbert's axioms are a set of 20 assumptions proposed by David Hilbert in 1899 in his book ''Grundlagen der Geometrie'' (tr. ''The Foundations of Geometry'') as the foundation for a modern treatment of Euclidean geometry. Other well-known modern a ...

. He also made contributions in

analysis Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (3 ...

, including to Carathéodory's theory of measure. With the Swiss mathematician Michel Plancherel, he made contributions in

ergodic theory Ergodic theory (Greek: ' "work", ' "way") is a branch of mathematics that studies statistical properties of deterministic dynamical systems; it is the study of ergodicity. In this context, statistical properties means properties which are expres ...

and

dynamical systems In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...

References

*, Obituary in German (

German Mathematical Society The German Mathematical Society (german: Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV) is the main professional society of German mathematicians and represents German mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the International Mathe ...

) * Gabriele Dörflinger
Artur Rosenthal
in
''Historia Mathematica Heidelbergensis''
Technical University of Munich alumni Purdue University faculty Academic staff of Heidelberg University 20th-century German mathematicians Refugees in the United States Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States 1887 births 1959 deaths University of Michigan faculty {{Germany-mathematician-stub

Career

Research

See also

References