Alwin Reinhold Korselt

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Alwin Reinhold Korselt (born March 17, 1864 in Mittelherwigsdorf , † February 4, 1947 in Plauen ) was a German mathematician.

life and work

From 1876 to 1885 Korselt attended grammar school in Zittau , then he studied mathematics and physics in Leipzig until 1890 (as well as a semester in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1886 ). In Leipzig, for example, he attended lectures by Felix Klein , Issai Schur , Eduard Study , Sophus Lie and Friedrich Engel .

After completing his legal clerkship at the Nikolaigymnasium in Leipzig , he taught at schools in Pirna , Dresden , Keilhau , Löbau and Meerane from 1891 to 1898 . His first scientific publication was in 1893 an extensive, two-part review ( remarks on the algebra of logic ) of Ernst Schröder's lectures . From 1898 until his retirement in 1924 he taught at a secondary school (later upper secondary school) in Plauen .

The reviewers of his dissertation in 1902 at the University of Leipzig were Otto Hölder and Carl Gottfried Neumann . It deals with geometric constructions in which, in addition to compasses and rulers , the n -division of angles is also allowed. Shortly afterwards he was involved in a controversy with Gottlob Frege about Hilbert's system of axioms of Euclidean geometry , in which he took Hilbert's side. His theorem by Korselt , which characterizes Carmichael numbers (a family of pseudoprimes), dates from 1899 . Korselt corresponded with Alfred Pringsheim , David Hilbert , Helmut Hasse , Bertrand Russell , Constantin Carathéodory and Abraham Fraenkel , whom he also visited repeatedly in Marburg .

Korselt was not married, and since he spent most of his income on books and cigars, he was often negligently dressed. One of his legs was amputated in the 1930s. He remained scientifically active until around 1939, died in Plauen in 1947 and was buried in Mittelherwigsdorf.

The Korselt numbers were named after Korselt (a composite square-free number n is called a-Korselt number if for each of its prime divisors p it holds that n - a is divisible by p - a ; the 1-Korselt numbers are the Carmichael- Numbers).

Fonts

  • Dissertation: On the possibility of solving strange triangular problems by dividing angles , 67 pages, Leipzig, 1901
  • About the basics of geometry , annual report of the German Mathematicians Association 12 , 402–407, 1903, online

Literature and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The last sentence of his essay On the Fundamentals of Geometry from 1903 reads: "For these reasons I cannot find Mr. Frege's reservations about Hilbert's presentation justified, despite all my thinking."
  2. ↑ In a letter dated September 24, 1931, Hasse wrote to Korselt, for example, that he had never read such unclear words as on his card. Please express himself more clearly (according to Lothar Kreiser, estate splitter No. 6).
  3. ↑ See Bouallegue, Echi, Pinch: Korselt numbers and sets
personal data
SURNAME Korselt, Alwin Reinhold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Mittelherwigsdorf
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1947
Place of death Plauen