Roland Weitzenböck (26 May 1885 – 24 July 1955) was an Austrian mathematician working on differential geometry who introduced the

Weitzenböck connection Teleparallelism (also called teleparallel gravity), was an attempt by Albert Einstein to base a unified theory of electromagnetism and gravity on the mathematical structure of distant parallelism, also referred to as absolute or teleparallelism. In ...

. He was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Amsterdam in 1923 at the initiative of

Brouwer Brouwer (also Brouwers and de Brouwer) is a Dutch and Flemish surname. The word ''brouwer'' means 'beer brewer'. Brouwer * Adriaen Brouwer (1605–1638), Flemish painter * Alexander Brouwer (b. 1989), Dutch beach volleyball player * Andries Bro ...

, after

Hermann Weyl Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is assoc ...

had turned down Brouwer’s offer.

Biography

Roland Weitzenböck was born in

Kremsmünster Kremsmünster is a town in Kirchdorf an der Krems District, in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Settled in 777, it is home to the Kremsmünster Abbey. The Abbey was founded 777 by Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and is one of the oldest abbeys of ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. He studied from 1902 to 1904 at the

Imperial and Royal Technical Military Academy The Imperial and Royal Technical Military Academy (German: ''k.u.k. Technische Militärakademie'') was a military training facility founded in 1717 for certain officer groups of the Habsburg monarchy. The location of the academy changed several ...

(now HTL Vienna) and was a captain in the

Austrian army The Austrian Armed Forces (german: Bundesheer, lit=Federal Army) are the combined military forces of the Republic of Austria. The military consists of 22,050 active-duty personnel and 125,600 reservists. The military budget is 0.74% of natio ...

. He then studied at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

, where he graduated in 1910 with the dissertation ''Zum System von 3 Strahlenkomplexen im 4-dimensionalen Raum'' (The system of 3-rays complexes in 4-dimensional space). After further studies at

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

and

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 ...

, he became professor at the University of

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

in 1912. After Army service in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he became Professor of Mathematics at the Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1918. In 1923 Weitzenböck took a position of professor of mathematics at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

, where he stayed until 1945. He settled in

Blaricum Blaricum () is a municipality and village in the province of North Holland, the Netherlands. It is part of the region of Gooiland and part of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (Metropoolregio Amsterdam). It is known for its many monumental farm buil ...

, where he became a fully accepted member of the community. He was a man of few words, without observable political views. Appearances are often, however, deceptive, and in this case the solid imperturbable exterior hid a considerable amount of frustration resulting from the disastrous course of the First World War. As so many German and Austrian ex-service men, Weitzenböck became a hard-core

revanchist Revanchism (french: revanchisme, from ''revanche'', " revenge") is the political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country, often following a war or social movement. As a term, revanchism originated in 1870s F ...

, and an implacable enemy of France. But whereas Brouwer actively campaigned for the rehabilitation of German scientists, Weitzenböck refrained from political activity. However, after the ‘Anschluss’ of Austria in 1938, he started to vent his approval of Hitler’s policies in private conversations. Weitzenböck was elected member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

(KNAW) in May 1924, but suspended in May 1945 because of his attitude during the war. Weitzenböck had been a member of the

National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands ( nl, Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland, ; NSB) was a Dutch fascist and later Nazi political party that called itself a " movement". As a parliamentary party participating in legisl ...

. In 1923 Weitzenböck published a modern

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

on the theory of invariants on

manifold In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a n ...

s that included

tensor calculus In mathematics, tensor calculus, tensor analysis, or Ricci calculus is an extension of vector calculus to tensor fields (tensors that may vary over a manifold, e.g. in spacetime). Developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and his student Tullio Levi ...

. In the

Preface __NOTOC__ A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a '' foreword'' and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes ...

of this monograph one can read an offensive

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...

. One finds that the first letter of the first word in the first 21 sentences spell out: : NIEDER MIT DEN FRANZOSEN (down with the French). He also published papers on

torsion Torsion may refer to: Science * Torsion (mechanics), the twisting of an object due to an applied torque * Torsion of spacetime, the field used in Einstein–Cartan theory and ** Alternatives to general relativity * Torsion angle, in chemistry Bi ...

. In fact, in his paper "Differential Invariants in Einstein’s Theory of Tele-parallelism" Weitzenböck had given a supposedly complete

bibliography Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

of papers on torsion without mentioning

Élie Cartan Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometry. ...

. Weitzenböck died in

Zelhem Zelhem is a town in the Dutch province of Gelderland. It has approximately 11,000 inhabitants. Zelhem is located in the municipality of Bronckhorst, about 7 km northeast of Doetinchem. Zelhem was a separate municipality until 2005, when it b ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in 1955. His doctoral students include G. F. C. Griss,

Daniel Rutherford Daniel Rutherford (3 November 1749 – 15 December 1819) was a Scottish physician, chemist and botanist who is known for the isolation of nitrogen in 1772. Life Rutherford was born on 3 November 1749, the son of Anne Mackay and Professor John ...

and

Max Euwe Machgielis "Max" Euwe (; May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. He served as ...

Publications

* * * *''Neuere Arbeiten zur algebraischen Invariantentheorie. Differentialinvarianten''. Enzyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften, III, Bd.3, Teubner 1921 *''Differentialinvarianten in der Einsteinschen Theorie des Fernparallelismus'', Sitzungsberichte Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phys.-Math.Klasse, 1928, S.466

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Weitzenbock, Roland 1885 births 1955 deaths 20th-century Austrian mathematicians Differential geometers University of Amsterdam faculty Academics of the University of Graz University of Vienna alumni People from Kirchdorf an der Krems District Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Biography

Publications

See also

Notes

External links