Leo August Pochhammer (25 August 1841,
Stendal
The Hanseatic City of Stendal () is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of the Stendal District and the unofficial capital of the Altmark region.
Geography
Situated west of the Elbe valley, the Stendal town centre is located s ...
– 24 March 1920,
Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021).
Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...
) was a
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
n
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 ...
who was educated in
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 ...
, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1863 under
Ernst Kummer
Ernst Eduard Kummer (29 January 1810 – 14 May 1893) was a German mathematician. Skilled in applied mathematics, Kummer trained German army officers in ballistics; afterwards, he taught for 10 years in a '' gymnasium'', the German equivalent of ...
. He became a lecturer in 1874, then professor of mathematics at the
Christian-Albrechts-Universität of Kiel (1877–1919), where he was appointed Rektor (commissioner of education) in 1893. He is known for his work on
special function
Special functions are particular mathematical functions that have more or less established names and notations due to their importance in mathematical analysis, functional analysis, geometry, physics, or other applications.
The term is defined by ...
s and introduced the
Pochhammer symbol
In mathematics, the falling factorial (sometimes called the descending factorial, falling sequential product, or lower factorial) is defined as the polynomial
:\begin
(x)_n = x^\underline &= \overbrace^ \\
&= \prod_^n(x-k+1) = \prod_^(x-k) \,.
\e ...
, now generally used for expressing
hypergeometric functions in a compact notation.
See also
*
Pochhammer symbol
In mathematics, the falling factorial (sometimes called the descending factorial, falling sequential product, or lower factorial) is defined as the polynomial
:\begin
(x)_n = x^\underline &= \overbrace^ \\
&= \prod_^n(x-k+1) = \prod_^(x-k) \,.
\e ...
*
Generalized Pochhammer symbol In mathematics, the generalized Pochhammer symbol of parameter \alpha>0 and partition \kappa=(\kappa_1,\kappa_2,\ldots,\kappa_m) generalizes the classical Pochhammer symbol, named after Leo August Pochhammer, and is defined as
:(a)^_\kappa=\prod_^m ...
*
''q''-Pochhammer symbol
*
Pochhammer contour
In mathematics, the Pochhammer contour, introduced by Jordan (1887), pp. 243–244 and , is a contour in the complex plane with two points removed, used for contour integration. If ''A'' and ''B'' are loops around the two points, both starting a ...
*
Falling and rising factorials
In mathematics, the falling factorial (sometimes called the descending factorial, falling sequential product, or lower factorial) is defined as the polynomial
:\begin
(x)_n = x^\underline &= \overbrace^ \\
&= \prod_^n(x-k+1) = \prod_^(x-k) \,.
\e ...
External links
*
Eric W. Weisstein's world of science
1841 births
1920 deaths
19th-century German mathematicians
People from the Province of Saxony
People from Stendal
20th-century German mathematicians
{{Germany-mathematician-stub