Ferdinand von Lindemann
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters". Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann (12 April 1852 – 6 March 1939) was a German mathematician, noted for his proof, published in 1882, that [[pi|Template:Pi]] (pi) is a transcendental number, meaning it is not a root of any nonzero polynomial with rational coefficients.
Life and education
Lindemann was born in Hanover, the capital of the Kingdom of Hanover. His father, Ferdinand Lindemann, taught modern languages at a gymnasium in Hanover. His mother, Emilie Crusius, was the daughter of the gymnasium's headmaster. The family later moved to Schwerin, where young Ferdinand attended school.
He studied mathematics at Göttingen, Erlangen, and Munich. At Erlangen he received a doctorate, supervised by Felix Klein,[1] on non-Euclidean geometry. Lindemann subsequently taught in Würzburg and at the University of Freiburg. During his time in Freiburg, Lindemann devised his proof that Template:Pi is a transcendental number (see Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem). After his time in Freiburg, Lindemann transferred to the University of Königsberg. While a professor in Königsberg, Lindemann acted as supervisor for the doctoral theses of the mathematicians David Hilbert, Hermann Minkowski, and Arnold Sommerfeld.[2]
Transcendence proof
In 1882, Lindemann published the result for which he is best known, the transcendence of [[pi|Template:Pi]]. His methods were similar to those used nine years earlier by Charles Hermite to show that e, the base of natural logarithms, is transcendental. Before the publication of Lindemann's proof, it was known that Template:Pi was irrational, as Johann Heinrich Lambert [[Proof that π is irrational|proved Template:Pi was irrational in the 1760s]].
References
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External links
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- Template:PAGENAMEBASE at the Mathematics Genealogy ProjectTemplate:EditAtWikidata
- Lindemann, F. "Über die Zahl Template:Pi", Mathematische Annalen 20 (1882): pp. 213–225.
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- 1852 births
- 1939 deaths
- 19th-century German mathematicians
- 20th-century German mathematicians
- Squaring the circle
- German number theorists
- Scientists from Hanover
- People from the Kingdom of Hanover
- University of Göttingen alumni
- University of Erlangen–Nuremberg alumni
- Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
- Academic staff of the University of Königsberg