Albrecht Pfister (mathematician)

Albrecht Pfister (born July 30, 1934 in Munich ) is a German mathematician who deals with algebra and especially square shapes .

Albrecht Pfister 1976

Pfister received his doctorate in 1961 under Martin Kneser and Karl Stein at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich ( on the coefficient problem of the limited functions of two variables ). In 1966 he was at the Georg-August University Göttingen habilitation . From 1970 until his retirement he was professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz .

In the theory of square shapes over bodies, the Pfister shapes introduced by him in 1965 are named after him. In 1967 he proved an upper bound in the seventeenth Hilbert problem (which Emil Artin solved in 1927).

In 1970 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice ( Sums of squares in real function fields ).

Fonts

• Quadratic forms with applications to algebraic geometry and topology. In: London Mathematical Society Lecturenotes. Cambridge University Press 1995.
• Square shapes. In: Fischer, Hirzebruch u. a. (Ed.): 100 Years of Mathematics 1890–1990. Vieweg 1990.

Web links

• Literature by and about Albrecht Pfister in the catalog of the German National Library