Lorenz Leonard Lindelöf (13 November 1827, Karvia, Finland – 3 March 1908,

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

) was a Finnish mathematician, astronomer and politician.

Biography

Lindelöf grew up in a poor family. He learned German and French and studied astronomy and mathematics at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

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

Pulkovo Observatory The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (), officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, is the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is located 19 km south ...

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 P ...

, 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 learned society for natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It is a bilingual (Swedish and Finnish) science academy and the oldest of the four science academies in Finland. ...

and in 1867 its permanent secretary. He also became in 1900 a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala. In 1880 he received the Steiner Prize of the

Prussian Academy of Sciences The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences () 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 Academy" may also refer. In the 18th century, when Frenc ...

. His burial took place in Hietaniemi cemetery.

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 ''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 Mathematicians from the Russian Empire 20th-century Russian astronomers 19th-century astronomers from the Russian Empire University of Helsinki alumni Academic staff of the University of Helsinki 1827 births 1908 deaths