Biography
Rudolf Lipschitz was born on 14 May 1832 in Königsberg. He was the son of a landowner and was raised at his father's estate at Bönkein which was near Königsberg. He entered the University of Königsberg when he was 15, but later moved to the University of Berlin where he studied with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Gustav Dirichlet. Despite having his studies delayed by illness, in 1853 Lipschitz graduated with a PhD in Berlin. After receiving his PhD, Lipschitz started teaching at local Gymnasium (Germany), Gymnasiums. In 1857 he married Ida Pascha, the daughter of one of the landowners with an estate near to his father's. In 1857 he earned his habilitation at the University of Bonn and remained there as a privatdozent. In 1862 Lipschitz became an extraordinary professor at the University of Breslau where he spent the following two years. In 1864 Lipschitz moved back to Bonn as a full professor. He was the first Jewish full professor at Bonn University. He was appointed Bonn's first chair of Mathematics in 1869. He remained there for the rest of his career. Here he examined the dissertation of Felix Klein. Lipschitz died on 7 October 1903 in Bonn.Rediscovery of Clifford algebra
Lipschitz discovered Clifford algebras in 1880, two years after William K. Clifford (1845–1879) and independently of him, and he was the first to use them in the study of orthogonal transformations. Up to 1950 people mentioned "Clifford–Lipschitz numbers" when they referred to this discovery of Lipschitz. Yet Lipschitz's name suddenly disappeared from the publications involving Clifford algebras; for instance Claude Chevalley (1909–1984) gave the name "Clifford group" to an object that is never mentioned in Clifford's works, but stems from Lipschitz's. Pertti Lounesto (1945–2002) contributed greatly to recalling the importance of Lipschitz's role.Jacques Helmstetter, Artibano Micali: ''Quadratic Mappings and Clifford Algebras'', Birkhäuser, 2008,Selected publications
''Lehrbuch der Analysis'' (two volumes, Bonn 1877, 1880); ''Wissenschaft und Staat'' (Bonn, 1874); ''Untersuchungen über die Summen von Quadraten'' (Bonn, 1886); ''Bedeutung der theoretischen Mechanik'' (Berlin, 1876).See also
* Cauchy–Lipschitz theorem * Lipschitz domain * Lipschitz quaternion * Lipschitz continuity ** Continuous function#Uniform, Hölder and Lipschitz continuity, Uniform, Hölder and Lipschitz continuity * Lipschitz distance * Metric space#Lipschitz-continuous maps and contractions, Lipschitz-continuous maps and contractions * Modulus of continuity#Concave moduli and Lipschitz approximation, Concave moduli and Lipschitz approximation * Dini–Lipschitz criterion * Dini test, Dini–Lipschitz testReferences
External links
* * * (digitalized document, provided without fee by Göttingen Digitalization Project, in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lipschitz, Rudolf 19th-century German mathematicians 1832 births 1903 deaths University of Bonn faculty Scientists from Königsberg People from the Province of Prussia Mathematical analysts