Beno Eckmann

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Beno Eckmann (1988)

Beno Eckmann (born March 31, 1917 in Bern , † November 25, 2008 in Zurich ) was a Swiss mathematician who dealt with algebraic topology , homological algebra , group theory and differential geometry .

life and work

The son of a chemist attended high school in Bern and studied mathematics at the ETH Zurich from 1935 , where he obtained his diploma in 1939 and received his doctorate in 1941 with Heinz Hopf with a thesis on algebraic topology. In addition to Hopf, his teachers included George Pólya , Paul Bernays and Michel Plancherel (whose assistant he was). He then worked as a lecturer at the University of Zurich and from 1942 at the University of Lausanne with Georges de Rham , where he was appointed associate professor in 1945. From 1948 until his retirement in 1984 he was a full professor at the ETH Zurich. There he founded the Research Institute for Mathematics in 1964 , of which he was director until 1984. In addition, he was a visiting scientist z. B. at the University of California, Berkeley (1955), the University of Michigan (1950), the University of Illinois (1952), the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (1958), at the Institute for Advanced Study (1947, 1951/52 ) and MSRI .

Eckmann made fundamental contributions to the development of category theory, cohomology of groups (from 1945) and algebraic topology in their development phase in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1943 he published a group-theoretical proof of the composition theorem of Hurwitz (1898) and Radon (1923) for quadratic forms in several variables (from the Hurwitz theorem the existence of composition algebras follows only in 1, 2, 4 and 8 dimensions according to the real numbers, complex numbers, quaternions , octonions ). According to Adams' theorem, it also implies an upper limit for the number of linearly independent vector fields on spheres. In 1942 Eckmann determined all spaces with vector products ( continuous solutions of linear systems of equations ).

From 1956 to 1961 he was secretary of the International Mathematical Union and from 1961/62 President of the Swiss Mathematical Society . From 1972 to 1984 he was a member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation . Eckmann is a member of the Academia Europaea and the Finnish Academy of Sciences . For many years Eckmann was co-editor of the Yellow Series (Basic Teachings of Mathematical Sciences) at Springer-Verlag and in 1964 co-founded its series Lecture Notes in Mathematics .

In 1942 he received the silver medal from the ETH for his dissertation. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Friborg (Switzerland) , the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne , the Technion in Haifa and the Ben Gurion University in Be'er Scheva . In 1962 he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Stockholm (Homotopy and Cohomology Theory) and he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in Amsterdam in 1954. In 1994 he was honorary president of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. In 1967 he received the Prix Mondial Nessim Habif from the University of Geneva . In 2008 he received the Albert Einstein Medal .

His students and PhD students include Hans Grauert , Michel Kervaire , Ernst Specker , Peter Huber , Urs Stammbach , Erwin Bolthausen , Manuel Castellet . György Targonski as a refugee from the Eastern Bloc or Hungary was also an informal mentee of Eckmann.

Eckmann also published the collected works of his teacher Heinz Hopf.

Beno Eckmann with Raghavan Narasimhan (left)

He is the father of the mathematical physicist Jean-Pierre Eckmann .

In connection with the development of the ETH Hönggerberg, Science City location, it was decided to designate a street after Beno Eckmann.

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ z. B. Ebbinghaus: Numbers. Springer Verlag 1983, Chapter 10.
  2. ↑ Beno Eckmann in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used
  3. ↑ Beno-Eckmann-Weg
personal data
SURNAME Eckmann, Beno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 2008
Place of death Zurich