Ernst Kötter was a German mathematician.
Education
Kötter graduated in 1884 from the
University of Berlin
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 ...
under the supervision of
Karl Weierstrass and
Leopold Kronecker.
Career
Kötter's treatise ''"Fundamentals of a purely geometrical theory of
algebraic plane curves"'' gained the 1886 prize of the
Berlin Royal Academy.
In 1901, he published his report on ''"The development of
synthetic geometry from
Monge
Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, commonly presented as the inventor of descriptive geometry, (the mathematical basis of) technical drawing, and the father of differential geometry. Duri ...
to
Staudt
Staudt is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a community belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'' – in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Geography
The municipal area lies at elevations from 260 to 285 m above sea level. The community ...
(1847)"'';
it had been sent to the press as early as 1897, but completion was deferred by Kötter's appointment to
Aachen University
RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...
and a subsequent persisting illness.
He constructed a mobile wood model to illustrate the theorems of
Dandelin spheres In geometry, the Dandelin spheres are one or two spheres that are tangent both to a plane and to a cone that intersects the plane. The intersection of the cone and the plane is a conic section, and the point at which either sphere touches the plane ...
.
In a discussion with
Schoenflies
Arthur Moritz Schoenflies (; 17 April 1853 – 27 May 1928), sometimes written as Schönflies, was a German mathematician, known for his contributions to the application of group theory to crystallography, and for work in topology.
Schoenflies ...
and Kötter,
Hilbert reportedly uttered his famous quotation according to which
point
Point or points may refer to:
Places
* Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland
* Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States
* Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
* Point ...
s,
line
Line most often refers to:
* Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity
* Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system
Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to:
Arts ...
s, and
plane
Plane(s) most often refers to:
* Aero- or airplane, a powered, fixed-wing aircraft
* Plane (geometry), a flat, 2-dimensional surface
Plane or planes may also refer to:
Biology
* Plane (tree) or ''Platanus'', wetland native plant
* Planes (gen ...
s in geometry could be named as well ''"tables, chairs, and beer mugs"''.
[ Here: p.402-403]
Publications
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References
19th-century German mathematicians
Geometers
1859 births
1922 deaths
20th-century German mathematicians
{{Germany-mathematician-stub