Enno Dirksen (3 January 1788 – 16 July 1850) was a German mathematician.

Early life

He was born in Bedekaspel, Germany. Between 1803 and 1807, he obtained private lessons in mathematics, physics, astronomy and navigation from a teacher at the Emden Navigation School. Following this, he taught at local schools in Hatzum (till 1815) and in Hinte.

Career

On the suggestion of , he enrolled at

Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The o ...

in 1817 to study mathematics. He pursued his doctorate there advised by

Johann Tobias Mayer Johann Tobias Mayer (5 May 1752 – 30 November 1830) was a German physicist. He was mainly well known for his mathematics and natural science textbooks. ''Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre zum Behuf der Vorlesungen über die Experimental-Physik'', ...

and Bernhard Friedrich Thibaut. He went to Berlin in 1820 and started working for the astronomer

Johann Elert Bode Johann Elert Bode (; 19 January 1747 – 23 November 1826) was a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularisation of the Titius–Bode law. Bode determined the orbit of Uranus and suggested the planet's name. Life and career B ...

. He habilitated at the

Berlin University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

's mathematics department as an expert in astronomy. In August 1820, he was appointed by the Prussian Ministry as an extraordinary professor in the university. Four years later, in June 1824, he was appointed as a full Professor of Mathematics. The noted mathematician

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (; ; 10 December 1804 – 18 February 1851) was a German mathematician who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants, and number theory. His name is occasiona ...

was one of the students he advised. He was an elected member of the

Prussian Academy of Sciences The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (german: Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften) was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin ...

from 1825. He retired from teaching in 1848–49 due to illness, and moved to Paris. He died there on 16 July 1850.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dirksen, Enno 1788 births 1850 deaths University of Göttingen alumni Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin 19th-century German mathematicians