Dieter Rödding (24 August 1937 in Hattingen (

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...

) – 4 June 1984 in

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

) 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, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who main research interest was

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ...

. Dieter Rödding was born on 24 August 1937 in Hattingen, Ruhr,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. In 1956, Rödding began his studies at the

Westphalian Wilhelms-University Westphalian may refer to: * The culture or people of the Westphalia region of Germany * Westphalian language, one of the major dialect groups of West Low German * Westphalian sovereignty, a concept in international relations * Westphalian (stage), ...

, Germany. In 1961, he received his doctorate with the dissertation "''Representative sentences about (in the Kalmár-Czillagian sense) elementary functions''", supervised by

Gisbert Hasenjaeger Gisbert F. R. Hasenjaeger (June 1, 1919 – September 2, 2006) was a German mathematical logician. Independently and simultaneously with Leon Henkin in 1949, he developed a new proof of the completeness theorem of Kurt Gödel for predicate logi ...

. In 1964, he completed his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

at Münster with the thesis "''Theory of recursivity over the domain of finite sets of finite rank''". In 1966, he succeeded

Hans Hermes Hans Hermes (; 12 February 1912 – 10 November 2003) was a German mathematician and logician, who made significant contributions to the foundations of mathematical logic. Hermes was born in Neunkirchen, Germany. Personal life From 1931, Hermes ...

as the Chair and Director of the Institute of Mathematical Logic and Fundamental Research at the Westphalian Wilhelms-University, founded by

Heinrich Scholz Heinrich Scholz (; 17 December 1884 – 30 December 1956) was a German logician, philosopher, and Protestant theologian. He was a peer of Alan Turing who mentioned Scholz when writing with regard to the reception of "On Computable Numbers, wit ...

in 1936. Rödding became known through his results on the classification of recursive functions, on recursive types of

classical predicate logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...

, on Scholz's spectrum problem, as well as on quantifiers in predicate logic, and on the arithmetical hierarchy (aka the Kleene-

Mostowski Mostowski (feminine: Mostowska, plural: Mostowscy) is a surname. It may refer to: * Mostowski Palace ( pl, Pałac Mostowskich), an 18th-century palace in Warsaw * Andrzej Mostowski (1913 - 1975), a Polish mathematician ** Mostowski collapse lemma, ...

hierarchy). Rödding was one of the first to use a machine-oriented concept of

complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generall ...

for the investigation of recursive functions and logical

decision problem In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a decision problem is a computational problem that can be posed as a yes–no question of the input values. An example of a decision problem is deciding by means of an algorithm whethe ...

s, before the establishment of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

as an academic field. His students included

Egon Börger Egon Börger (born 13 May 1946) is a German-born computer scientist based in Italy. Life and work Börger was born in Bad Laer, Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Germany. Between 1965 and 1971 he studied at the Sorbonne, Paris (France), Université Cath ...

, Hans Kleine Büning, Hans Georg Carstens, Elmar Cohors-Fresenborg, Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus, Thomas Ottmann, Lutz Priese, and

Helmut Schwichtenberg Helmut Schwichtenberg (born 5 April 1942 in Żagań) is a German mathematical logician. Schwichtenberg studied mathematics from 1961 at the FU Berlin and from 1964 at the University of Münster, where he received his doctorate in 1968 from D ...

. A complete list of Rödding's publications can be found in an obituary written by his student

References

External links

Literature by and about Dieter Rödding
in the catalogue of the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...

*
Photo
with

Heinrich Behnke Heinrich Adolph Louis Behnke (Horn, 9 October 1898 – Münster, 10 October 1979) was a German mathematician and rector at the University of Münster. Life and career He was born into a Lutheran family in Horn, a suburb of Hamburg. He att ...

(1967) 1937 births 1984 deaths People from Hattingen 20th-century German mathematicians University of Münster alumni Academic staff of the University of Münster German logicians Mathematical logicians Model theorists {{math-bio-stub