Aurel Wintner

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Aurel Friedrich Wintner (born April 8, 1903 in Budapest , † January 15, 1958 in Baltimore ) was an American mathematician of Hungarian origin who dealt primarily with analysis and celestial mechanics .

His interest in astronomy (and his endeavor to put celestial mechanics on solid mathematical foundations) led not only to his occupation with Hilbert spaces , but also other problems of analysis such as almost periodic functions , distribution functions , Fourier series , Tauber's theorems as well as analytical number theory , probability theory , Ergodic theory , where it came to collaboration with George David Birkhoff and Norbert Wiener .

Live and act

At the school in Budapest, Wintner showed both musical talent (he played the violin very well , but gave it up completely in favor of mathematics at the age of 17) and mathematical talent. Through his uncle Samuel Oppenheim (1857–1928), who was an astronomy professor in Vienna , he was also interested in astronomy . From 1920 to 1924 he studied at the University of Budapest. A whole series of mathematical and astronomical publications in the following years brought him an invitation from Leon Lichtenstein in Leipzig (who himself worked on the application of the calculus of variations, for example, to the equilibrium figures of celestial bodies), where he supported Lichtenstein in the publication of the mathematical journal and received his doctorate in 1929 .

In this dissertation, in an effort to rigorously justify the work of George William Hill on the lunar orbit , in which Hill used infinite matrices , he proved many fundamental theorems from the theory of Hilbert spaces, while at the same time John von Neumann , who was doing the foundations of quantum mechanics had in the back of his mind, was very active in the same field and overshadowed Wintner's results in the episode.

From 1929 to 1930 he visited Tullio Levi-Civita in Rome and the astronomer Bengt Strömgren in Copenhagen on a scholarship . In 1930 he married the chemist Irmgard Hölder, the daughter of his Leipzig teacher Otto Hölder . The marriage produced a son. In 1930 he accepted a professorship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which he held until his death in 1958. In 1944 he became editor of the American Journal of Mathematics .

His son Claude Wintner is Professor of Organic Chemistry at Haverford College .

Works

  • Spectral theory of infinite matrices. 1929 ( digitized version ).
  • The Analytical Foundations of Celestial Mechanics. 1941, Dover 2014.
  • The Fourier Transforms of Probability Distributions. 1947 ( digitized version ).

further publications (selection):

  • On analysis in Hilbert's space. In: Mathematische Zeitschrift , Volume 28, Berlin / Göttingen 1928, pp. 451-470 ( digitized version ).
  • Diophantine approximations and Hermitian matrices. First communication. In: Mathematische Zeitschrift , Volume 30, Berlin / Göttingen 1929, pp. 290-319 ( digitized version ).
  • About the small numerical divisors in the general theory of perturbations. In: Mathematische Zeitschrift , Volume 31, Berlin / Göttingen 1930, pp. 434–440 ( digitized version ).
  • Dynamic systems and unitary matrices. In: Mathematische Zeitschrift , Volume 36, Berlin / Göttingen 1933, pp. 630–637 ( digitized version ).
  • Eratosthenian averages. Waverly Press, Baltimore 1943 ( digitized version ).
  • The Theory of Measure in Arithmetical Semi Groups. Waverly Press, Baltimore 1944 ( digitized version ).
  • An Arithmetical Approach to Orindary Fourier Series. Waverly Press, Baltimore 1945 ( digitized version ).

See also

literature

  • Philip Hartman : Aurel Wintner. In: Journal London Mathematical Society , Vol. 37, 1962, p. 483.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wintner, Aurel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wintner, Aurel Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1958
Place of death Baltimore