Jean-Pierre Sydler (1921-1988) was a
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
mathematician and a
librarian, well known for his work in
geometry, most notably on
Hilbert's third problem.
Biography
Sydler was born in 1921 in
Neuchâtel
, neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier
, twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (France), ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. He graduated from
ETH Zürich in 1943 and received a
doctorate in 1947. In 1950 he became a librarian at the ETH while continuing to publish mathematical papers in his spare time. In 1960 he received a prize of the
Danish Academy of Sciences for his work on
scissors congruence. In 1963 he became a director of the ETH library and pioneered the use of automatisation. He continued serving as a director until the retirement in 1986. He died in 1988 in
Zürich.
References
* Greg N. Frederickson, ''Dissections: Plane and Fancy'', Cambridge University Press, 2003.
External links
*
1921 births
1988 deaths
People from Neuchâtel
ETH Zurich alumni
20th-century Swiss mathematicians
Swiss librarians
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