Walter Purkert

Last updated

Walter Purkert (born 22 January 1944 in Trautenau) is a German mathematician and historian of mathematics. [1]

Contents

Career

Purkert received his doctorate (Promotion) in 1972 from Leipzig University. His thesis Die Entwicklung des abstrakten Körperbegriffs (The development of the abstract concept of the algebraic structure called a field) was supervised by Hans Wußing. [2] From 1972 to 1979 Purkert was employed in the mathematics section of Leipzig University's mathematics/natural sciences department. In the mathematics section of Leipzig University's department of the history of medicine and the natural sciences, he was from 1979 to 1987 a lecturer (Dozent), from 1987 to 1991 a professor extraordinarius, and from 1988 to 1990 the director of the mathematics section. [3]

Purkert was a visiting professor in the summer of 1988 at Pace University and for the academic year 1992–1993 at the University of Wuppertal. He has been a research assistant and professor at the University of Bonn since the mid-1990s. There he was coordinating editor of the Hausdorff Edition. [3] This annotated edition of the collected works of Felix Hausdorff includes the philosophical and literary writings published under Hausdorff's pseudonym Paul Mongré. The leading editorial committee had five members including, besides Purkert, Egbert Brieskorn (the project initiator), [4] Friedrich Hirzebruch, Reinhold Remmert, and Erhard Scholz. There is a first edition done by editors from Germany and four other countries. There is also a supplemented edition. More than twenty mathematicians, historians, philosophers and literary scholars worked together. The edition was carried out as a long-term project by the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste (North Rhine-Westphalia Academy for Sciences and Arts). The edition comprises 10 separate volumes (IA, IB, and II through IX). The volumes were published between 2001 and 2020 by Springer Verlag. [5] Purkert completed (during 2013–2018) the biography of Hausdorff (Volume IB of the edition) begun by Egbert Brieskorn (1936–2013) and also edited Hausdorff's correspondence (Volume IX of the edition). [1]

Purkert was the co-author, with Hans-Joachim Ilgauds, of a well-regarded biography of Georg Cantor. Purkert also edited Felix Klein's 1891–1892 lectures in Göttingen on Riemann surfaces. [3] In addition to his historical and editorial research, Purkert published mathematical research on stochastic analysis. [1]

Honors

In 2005 Purkert gave the historical lecture Felix Hausdorff - Mathematiker, Philosoph und Literat, which was part of the events accompanying the Euler Lecture. [6] He was elected in 2007 a corresponding member of the Académie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, Paris and in 2015 a member of the Bernoulli-Euler-Gesellschaft  [ de ], Basel. [3]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felix Hausdorff</span> German mathematician

Felix Hausdorff was a German mathematician, pseudonym Paul Mongré, who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed significantly to set theory, descriptive set theory, measure theory, and functional analysis.

<i>Grundzüge der Mengenlehre</i> 1914 book by Felix Hausdorff

Grundzüge der Mengenlehre is a book on set theory written by Felix Hausdorff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andreas Speiser</span> Swiss mathematician

Andreas Speiser was a Swiss mathematician and philosopher of science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwig Schlesinger</span> German mathematician (1864–1933)

Ludwig Schlesinger, was a German mathematician known for the research in the field of linear differential equations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Witting</span> German mathematician

Carl Johann Adolf Alexander Witting was a German mathematician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niels Nielsen (mathematician)</span> Danish mathematician (1865–1931)

Niels Nielsen was a Danish mathematician who specialised in mathematical analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Wussing</span> German historian of mathematics and science

Hans-Ludwig Wußing was a German historian of mathematics and science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egbert Brieskorn</span> German mathematician (1936–2013)

Egbert Valentin Brieskorn was a German mathematician who introduced Brieskorn spheres and the Brieskorn–Grothendieck resolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Rohn</span> German mathematician

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Rohn was a German mathematician, who studied geometry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Fueter</span> Swiss mathematician

Karl Rudolf Fueter was a Swiss mathematician, known for his work on number theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinrich Liebmann</span> German mathematician and geometer

Karl Otto Heinrich Liebmann was a German mathematician and geometer.

Heinrich Georg Leonhard Schotten was a German mathematician and mathematical pedagogue, known for his work on reforms in the teaching of geometry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moritz Epple</span> German mathematician and historian of science

Moritz Epple is a German mathematician and historian of science.

Erhard Scholz is a German historian of mathematics with interests in the history of mathematics in the 19th and 20th centuries, historical perspective on the philosophy of mathematics and science, and Hermann Weyl's geometrical methods applied to gravitational theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Schilling</span> German mathematician

Friedrich Georg Schilling was a German mathematician.

Johann Jakob Burckhardt was a Swiss mathematician and crystallographer. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1936 in Oslo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rüdiger Thiele</span>

Rolf-Rüdiger Thiele is a German mathematician and historian of mathematics, known for his historical research on Hilbert's twenty-fourth problem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Rothe</span> German mathematician

Rudolf Ernst Rothe was a German applied mathematician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eberhard Zeidler (mathematician)</span> German mathematician

Eberhard Hermann Erich Zeidler was a German mathematician, who worked primarily in the field of non-linear functional analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze</span>

Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze is a German historian of mathematics.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lothar Mertens: Lexikon der DDR-Historiker. Biographien und Bibliographien zu den Geschichtswissenschaftlern aus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Saur, München 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X. doi : 10.1515/9783110965261
  2. Walter Purkert at the Mathematics Genealogy Project OCLC   122897822
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Purkert, Walter" (PDF). Universität Leipzig; Curriculum Vitae (in German) with publication list{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  4. Greuel, Gert-Martin; Purkert, Walter (2017). "Life and work of Egbert Brieskorn (1936 - 2013)". arXiv: 1711.09600 [math.AG]. (See pp. 6–11.)
  5. "Felix Hausdorff - Gesammelte Werke". Springer.
  6. "Euler-Vorlesung: Archiv".
  7. Schubring, Gert (2021). "Biographie. Felix Hausdorff, Gesammelte Werke. Band IB. By Egbert Brieskorn and Walter Purkert". The Mathematical Intelligencer. 43 (4): 94–98. doi: 10.1007/s00283-021-10083-9 .
  8. Felix Hausdorff: Mathematician, Philosopher, Man of Letters.{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)