Gerhard Kowalewski

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Gerhard Waldemar Hermann Kowalewski (born March 27, 1876 in Alt-Järshagen , Pomerania, † February 21, 1950 in Graefelfing near Munich) was a German mathematician.

Life

His parents were the teacher and Prussian school board member Leonhard Julius Kowalewski († 1929) and Maria, geb. Pommerening († 1926). His brother was the Königsberg philosophy professor, experimental psychologist and mathematician Arnold Christian Felix Kowalewski (1873-1945).

He was able to shorten his school time in Löbau in West Prussia and at the Humanist High School in Graudenz and began studying classical philology, philosophy and mathematics (with David Hilbert , Hermann Minkowski and G. Stäckel) and astronomy ( at the age of 17 at the University of Königsberg ) with Hermann von Struve and Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Peters ). After three semesters he moved to Greifswald and from 1896 he studied in Leipzig with Sophus Lie and Friedrich Engel . In 1898 he was with the work over a category of Transformation groups of a four-dimensional manifold Dr. phil. doctorate, and the following year he completed his habilitation in Leipzig. Here he and Heinrich Liebmann joined the teaching body as private lecturers.

In 1901 he became associate professor at the University of Greifswald and from 1904 to 1909 at the University of Bonn . In addition, he took on a teaching position in actuarial mathematics at the Cologne Commercial College . In 1909 he was appointed to a full professorship at the German Technical University in Prague and in 1912 at the German University in Prague .

When he moved to the TH Dresden in 1920 , he took his two best students Amélie Weizsäcker and Josef Fuhrich with him. On his initiative, the Mathematical Colloquium was founded here, which he chaired with Max Otto Lagally (1881–1945) and Walter Ludwig (1876–1946). His students included Wilhelm Vauck (1896–1968), William Threlfall (1888–1949), Herbert Seifert (1907–1996), Hilmar Wendt (1913–2002), Alfred Kneschke (1902–1979) and many teachers of mathematics and science Direction in high schools. A list of doctoral candidates can be found in Voss (2005). He was committed to promoting women at the university; among others, Anneliese Heede (1931), Hildegard Luther (1924), Elisabeth Steude (1930), Suse Weiner (1924) and Gertrud Wiegandt (1924, who was his assistant professor for many years ) did their doctorates with him . On March 1, 1933, he joined the NSDAP and in November 1933 signed the professors' commitment to Adolf Hitler at German universities and colleges . When he was appointed rector in 1935, he quickly fell “out of favor” and was replaced in February 1937 before the end of his two-year term and was given leave of absence by the Reich Minister of Education “at his own request”. In 1938 proceedings against him "for breach of trust" were initiated, from which he ultimately emerged unpunished. After Kowalewski was suspended in Dresden, he held a full professorship at the Technical University in Prague from 1939 to 1945. In 1941 he was drafted into the Navy High Command. He first worked for the naval weather service, then for the naval observatory in Greifswald. In 1943 he was declared unfit for military service. In 1946 he fled to Munich, where he took on teaching positions at the TH Munich and the Philosophical-Theological University of Regensburg .

He conducted research in the fields of the theory of transformation groups and natural geometry . The name natural equation (and natural geometry) goes back to him.

He was a member of the Bohemian and Saxon Academy of Sciences and holder of the Lobachevsky Diploma.

Publications (selection)

  • Newton's Treatise on the Quadrature of Curves. (1704). Translation from Latin; 1908
  • Lectures on natural geometry. [1] ; Ernesto Cesàro
  • About Bolzano's Indifferentiable Continuous Function. doi: 10.1007 / BF02403926
  • Old and new math games . An introduction to entertainment math. With 104 illustrations and instructions for manufacturing the play equipment. Teubner, 1930
  • Great Mathematicians: A Walk Through the History of Mathematics from Ancient Times to Modern Times. JF Lehmanns, Munich / Berlin 1937.
  • Existence and change. My memories also contribute to the recent history of mathematics. Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich 1950.

literature

  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 97.
  • Waltraud Voss: Kowalewski, Hermann Waldemar Gerhard, Professor of Mathematics. In: Old Prussian Biography Volume V, 1st delivery. Marburg / Lahn 2000, pp. 1623-1624.
  • Waltraud Voss: Gerhard Kowalewski as rector at the TH Dresden. In: Wolfgang Hein, Peter Ullrich (ed.): Mathematics in the flow of time. Erwin Rauner Verlag, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 978-3936905-02-1 , pp. 443-461.
  • Waltraud Voss: "... a university (also) for mathematicians ...". Dresden mathematicians and higher teacher training: 1828–1945. Erwin Rauner Verlag, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 978-3936905-12-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.zeno.org/Eisler-1912/A/Kowalewski,+Arnold
  2. ^ Roswitha Grassl, Peter Richart-Willmes: Thinking in his time: a personal glossary on Richard Hönigswald's environment ; P. 66.
  3. ↑ http://www.heldermann-verlag.de/jlt/jlt02/FRITPL.PDF
  4. ^ Lecture directories of the University of Leipzig; WS 1899 to SS 1901
  5. ^ The Development of Mathematics at the University of Leipzig - Preprint ( Memento from June 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ "... a university (also) for mathematicians ...". Dresden mathematicians and higher teacher education: 1828-1945. Augsburg 2005: Erwin Rauner Verlag. Pp. 239ff, 286ff. ISBN 978-3936905-12-0
  7. ↑ http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/zentrale_einrichtungen/ua/navpoints/archiv/bestaende/nachlaesse#Lagally,%20Max
  8. ↑ http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/zentrale_einrichtungen/ua/navpoints/archiv/doku/vdr#Ludwig
  9. ↑ http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/zentrale_einrichtungen/ua/navpoints/archiv/alumni/alumni_projekt
  10. ↑ "... a university (also) for mathematicians ...". Dresden mathematicians and higher teacher education: 1828-1945. Augsburg 2005: Erwin Rauner Verlag. Pp. 276-279, 314-319. ISBN 978-3936905-12-0
  11. ↑ Renate Tobies (Ed.): "All male culture in spite of". Women in math and science . With a foreword by Knut Radbruch . Campus, Frankfurt a. M./New York 1997, ISBN 3-593-35749-6 , pp. 132 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ "... a university (also) for mathematicians ...". Dresden mathematicians and higher teacher education: 1828-1945. Augsburg 2005: Erwin Rauner Verlag. Pp. 276-279. ISBN 978-3936905-12-0
  13. ↑ Reiner Pommerin : 175 years of TU Dresden. Volume 1: History of the TU Dresden 1828–2003. Edited on behalf of the Society of Friends and Supporters of the TU Dresden e. V. von Reiner Pommerin, Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-412-02303-5 , p. 175.
  14. ↑ Confession, p. 132
  15. ↑ http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/zentrale_einrichtungen/ua/navpoints/archiv/doku/vdr#Kowalewski
  16. ↑ "... a university (also) for mathematicians ...". Dresden mathematicians and higher teacher training: 1828–1945. Augsburg 2005: Erwin Rauner Verlag. Pp. 288-295. ISBN 978-3936905-12-0
  17. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tu-dresden.de
  18. ↑ "... a university (also) for mathematicians ...". Dresden mathematicians and higher teacher training: 1828–1945. Augsburg 2005: Erwin Rauner Verlag. P. 304. ISBN 978-3936905-12-0
  19. ↑ Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 97.
  20. ↑ http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/sfroehli/ss2007/vorlesung02.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / page.mi.fu-berlin.de  

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kowalewski, Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kowalewski, Gerhard Waldemar Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Stary Jaroslaw
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1950
Place of death Graefelfing