Lorenz Leonard Lindelöf (13 November 1827,

Karvia Karvia is a municipality of Finland founded in 1865. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Satakunta region. The population of Karvia is () and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water (). The p ...

, Finland – 3 March 1908,

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

) was a Finnish mathematician and astronomer.

Biography

Lindelöf came from a poor family. He learned German and French and studied astronomy and mathematics at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

. He initially specialized in astronomy at the graduate level and was at

Pulkovo Observatory The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (russian: Пулковская астрономическая обсерватория, Pulkovskaya astronomicheskaya observatoriya), officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academ ...

in 1855–1856. After his completion of his PhD (Promotierung), Lindelöf from 1857 to 1874 held the professorial chair of mathematics in Helsinki and from 1869 to 1872 was the rector of the university. He then resigned his professorial chair in favor of Mittag-Leffler and turned to politics. Lindelöf was from 1874 to 1902 minister of state education in Finland and also did actuarial work for Kaleva Mutual Insurance Company. In 1883 he was knighted and in 1888 was a member of the State Council. He was in the

Finnish Parliament The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The ...

, served on many committees and was in 1900 District Marshal. Lindelöf published papers on minimal surfaces, the calculus of variations, differential geometry, mechanics, celestial mechanics and pension funds. His son Ernst Leonard Lindelöf became a famous mathematician. In 1859 Lorenz Lindelöf became a member of the

Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters is a Finnish academy for natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It is known in Latin as Societas Scientiarum Fennica, in Swedish as Finska Vetenskaps-Societeten, and in Finnish as Suomen Tiede ...

and in 1867 its permanent secretary. He also became in 1900 a member of the

Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala The Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskaps-Societeten i Uppsala), is the oldest of the royal academies in Sweden, having been founded in 1710. The society has, by royal decree of 1906, 50 Swedish fellows and 100 foreign. ...

. In 1880 he received the Steiner Prize 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 ...

. His burial took place in

Hietaniemi cemetery The Hietaniemi cemetery ( fi, Hietaniemen hautausmaa, sv, Sandudds begravningsplats) is located mainly in the Lapinlahti quarter and partly in the Etu-Töölö district of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is the location for Finnish state ...

Selected works

''Limites entre lesquelles le caténoïde est une surface minima''
Acta Soc. Scient. Fenn., No. 9, 1871. *''Lärobok i analytisk Geometri'', Helsinki, 1877 (Handbook of Analytic Geometry in Swedish) *''Trajectoire d'un corps assujetti à se mouvoir sur la surface de la terre sous l'influence de la rotation terrestre'', Acta Soc. Scient. Fenn., No. 16, 1888 *''Variationskalkylens teori och dess användning till bestämmande af multipla integralers maxima och minima'', 1855 *''Nouvelle demonstration d´un théorème fondamental du calcul de variations'', Compte Rendus Acad. Sci. Paris, 1861
''Détermination analytique de la forme des ondes lumineuses élémentaires''
Acta Soc. Scient. Fenn., No. 6, 1861 *''Recherches sur les polyèdres maxima'', Acta Soc. Scient. Fenn., No. 24, 1898. *with the Abbé Moigno
''Leçons de calcul des variations''
Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1861

Sources

Olli Lehto Olli Erkki Lehto (30 May 1925 in Helsinki — 31 December 2020) was a Finnish mathematician, specializing in geometric function theory, and a chancellor of the University of Helsinki. Lehto earned his PhD in 1949 from the University of Helsinki ...

''Tieteen aatelia: Lorenz Lindelöf ja Ernst Lindelöf'', Otava, Helsinki 2008 (Finnish).

References

External links

*
Nordisk Familjebok (in Swedish), Project Runeberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindelof, Lorenz 19th-century Finnish mathematicians University of Helsinki alumni Academic staff of the University of Helsinki 1827 births 1908 deaths