Eberhard Becker (born July 23, 1943 in Stavenhagen) is a German mathematician whose career was spent at the

University of Dortmund TU Dortmund University (german: Technische Universität Dortmund) is a technical university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's and ...

. A very active researcher in algebra, he later became rector of the university there. During his term as rector, it was renamed the Technical University of Dortmund.Prof. Dr. Eberhard Becker succeeds Rector Klein at the helm of the University of Dortmund
Informationsdienst Wissenschaft, 1995-2023

Education and career

Becker received his Ph.D. at the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...

in 1972 with the dissertation, "Contributions to the theory of semi-simple quadratic algebra" under advisor Hel Braun.Eberhard Becker at the Mathenatics Genealogy Project
/ref> He completed his habilitation at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university to ...

in 1976.Eberhard Becker
Catalog of the German National Library In 1979 Becker was appointed to the mathematics department at the

. His research included work in the algebraic theory of

quadratic forms In mathematics, a quadratic form is a polynomial with terms all of degree two ("form" is another name for a homogeneous polynomial). For example, :4x^2 + 2xy - 3y^2 is a quadratic form in the variables and . The coefficients usually belong to ...

and

real algebraic geometry In mathematics, real algebraic geometry is the sub-branch of algebraic geometry studying real algebraic sets, i.e. real-number solutions to algebraic equations with real-number coefficients, and mappings between them (in particular real polynomia ...

. His collaborators included Manfred Knebusch and

Alex F. T. W. Rosenberg Alex F. T. W. Rosenberg (1926–2007) was a German-American mathematician who served as the editor of the '' Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'' from 1960 to 1965, and of the '' American Mathematical Monthly'' from 1974 to 1976.. ...

. He supervised over a dozen doctoral students, including Markus Schweighofer, Susanne Pumplün, and Thorsten Wörmann. In the mid 1980s, Becker proved that the expression (1 +

t^2

)/(2 +

t^2

) was a sum of 4th powers, 6th powers, 8th powers and so on. He offered a bottle of champaign to anyone who could find explicit representations of this form. Bruce Reznick came up with a solution in 1994.Bruce Reznick, "Some concrete aspects of Hilbert's 17th Problem," Seminarie de Structures Algebriques Ordonnees, Vol. 56, Equipe de Logique Mathematique, Universite Paris VII, 1996. After working as institute director, dean and member of the Senate at the University of Dortmund, Becker became rector there on April 30, 2002 following the resignation of Hans-Jürgen Klein. During his term in office the Senate decided, at his request, to change the name from “University of Dortmund” to “Technical University of Dortmund”. This decision was not without controversy, particularly in the humanities departments, but was confirmed at the crucial Senate meeting by two-thirds of the vote. On September 1, 2008 he was replaced by Ursula Gather. On the occasion of his retirement on November 7, 2008, the faculty organized a celebratory colloquium for him. To mark his 80th birthday, a conference on

Quadratic Forms In mathematics, a quadratic form is a polynomial with terms all of degree two ("form" is another name for a homogeneous polynomial). For example, :4x^2 + 2xy - 3y^2 is a quadratic form in the variables and . The coefficients usually belong to ...

and Real Algebra was held in October 2023 at the University of Dortmund.Quadratic Forms and Real Algebra
Conference on the occasion of Eberhard Becker‘s 80th birthday, Dortmund, 26–27 October 2023

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Eberhard Becker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

20th-century German mathematicians University of Hamburg alumni University of Cologne alumni Academic staff of the Technical University of Dortmund Algebraists 1943 births Living people