Heinrich Friedrich Karl Ludwig Burkhardt (15 October 1861 – 2 November 1914) 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 ...
. He famously was one of the two examiners of
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's
PhD thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
''Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen''.
Of Einstein's thesis he stated: "The mode of treatment demonstrates fundamental mastery of the relevant mathematical methods" and "What I checked, I found to be correct without exception."
Biography
Burkhardt was born in
Schweinfurt
Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban agg ...
. Starting from 1879 he studied under
Karl Weierstrass
Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (german: link=no, Weierstraß ; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician often cited as the "father of modern analysis". Despite leaving university without a degree, he studied mathematics ...
,
Alexander von Brill
Alexander Wilhelm von Brill (20 September 1842 – 18 June 1935) was a German mathematician.
Born in Darmstadt, Hesse, Brill was educated at the University of Giessen, where he earned his doctorate under supervision of Alfred Clebsch. He held a c ...
, and
Hermann Amandus Schwarz
Karl Hermann Amandus Schwarz (; 25 January 1843 – 30 November 1921) was a German mathematician, known for his work in complex analysis.
Life
Schwarz was born in Hermsdorf, Silesia (now Jerzmanowa, Poland). In 1868 he married Marie Kumme ...
in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
(at university and technical university),
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and Göttingen. He attained a doctorate in 1886 in Munich under
Gustav Conrad Bauer
Gustav Conrad Bauer (18 November 1820, Augsburg – 3 April 1906, Munich) was a German mathematician, known for the Bauer-Muir transformation and Bauer's conic sections. He earned a footnote in the history of science as the doctoral advisor (''Dokt ...
with a thesis entitled: ''Beziehungen zwischen der Invariantentheorie und der Theorie algebraischer Integrale und ihrer Umkehrungen'' (Relations between the invariant theory and the theory of algebraic integrals and their inverses).
In 1887 he was an assistant at
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
and obtained 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 ...
there in 1889. Later he was a professor in Zürich (1897–1908) and Munich (since October 1908). He worked on the theory of the
elliptical function
In the mathematical field of complex analysis, elliptic functions are a special kind of meromorphic functions, that satisfy two periodicity conditions. They are named elliptic functions because they come from elliptic integrals. Originally those i ...
s,
series expansion
In mathematics, a series expansion is an expansion of a function into a series, or infinite sum. It is a method for calculating a function that cannot be expressed by just elementary operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) ...
s,
group theory
In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups.
The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ...
, the
Burkhardt quartic In mathematics, the Burkhardt quartic is a quartic threefold in 4-dimensional projective space studied by ,
with the maximum possible number of 45 nodes.
Definition
The equations defining the Burkhardt quartic become simpler if it is embedded in ...
, and history of mathematics.
He died in Neuwittelsbach/
München
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 ...
, of a disease of the stomach, diagnosed about Easter 1914.
Works
* 1899
Elliptische Funktionen, zweiter Tiel from Internet Archive
* 1903
Algebraische Analysis from Internet Archive
* 1908
Entwicklungen nach oscillierenden Funktionen und Integration der Differentialgleichungen der mathematischen physick* 1913
Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable translated by S.E. Rasor, link from
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
See also
*
Alfred Kleiner
Alfred Kleiner (24 April 1849 – 3 July 1916) was a Swiss physicist and Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Zurich. He was Albert Einstein's doctoral advisor or ''Doktorvater.'' Initially Einstein's advisor was Heinrich F ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Einstein's dissertationHeinrich Liebmann „Zur Erinnerung an Heinrich Burkhardt“, Jahresbericht DMV Bd.24, 1915, S.185-195
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burkhardt, Heinrich Friedrich Karl Ludwig
19th-century German mathematicians
20th-century German mathematicians
German historians of mathematics
Technical University of Munich alumni
Technical University of Munich faculty
1861 births
1914 deaths