Carl Ferdinand Degen

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Carl Ferdinand Degen , also Karl, (born November 1, 1766 in Braunschweig , † April 8, 1825 in Copenhagen ) was a German mathematician who worked in Denmark.

Life

Degen moved with his family to Copenhagen in 1771, where his father Johan Philip Degen was a chamber musician with the Royal Chapel . He was the son of cellist Gerhard Degen and came from Wolfenbüttel, his mother was Henriette Regine (née Schultz, * 1740, † September 1, 1788), the daughter of a mayor from Sondershausen. He had seven siblings. He attended school in Helsingør and studied mathematics at the University of Copenhagen from 1783, but also classical languages, natural sciences and philosophy. In 1792 he won a prize in theology and mathematics. He was the mathematics teacher of the Crown Prince and later Christian VII. In 1798 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and in 1800 he became a member of the Danish Academy of Sciences. In 1802 he became a teacher of mathematics and physics at the cathedral school in Odense and a few years later rector of the cathedral school in Viborg . In 1814 he became professor of mathematics at the University of Copenhagen.

Niels Henrik Abel visited him in Copenhagen when he was studying there and was promoted by him. Abel - at that time still a student in Oslo - said in 1821 that he had found a general method for solving algebraic equations of the fifth degree using radicals (later he found a mistake and on the contrary proved that this is not generally possible) in an essay that Degen examined. Degen found no mistake, but recommended that he first try out his method on a concrete equation and, moreover, advised him to turn to the current study of elliptical integrals instead of this topic (in Degen's view, rather sterile ), which he also discussed before Degen Death was able to report the first results. Abel's great successes occurred after Degen's death.

He dealt with number theory, published tables on the solutions to Pell's equation for and proved the eight- squares theorem , wrongly assuming that such theorems exist for all powers of 2 (the cases n = 2, n = 4 were already known for some time).

Fonts

  • Bidrag til de etymologiske Undersøgelser's theory. Viborg 1807 ( Google Books ).
  • Canon Pellianus Sive Tabula simplicissimam Aequationis Celebratissimae. Copenhagen, Bonnier 1817 ( Google Books ).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ VC Ravn: Degen, Johan Philip . In: Carl Frederik Bricka (Ed.): Dansk biografisk Lexikon. Tillige omfattende Norge for Tidsrummet 1537-1814. 1st edition. tape 4 : Clemens – Eynden . Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, Copenhagen 1890, p. 228 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  2. ↑ Stubhaug: A flashing lightning bolt. Springer, 2003, p. 239.
  3. ↑ Sword: Canon Pellianus Sive Tabula simplicissimam Aequationis Celebratissimae. Bonnier, Copenhagen 1817.
  4. ↑ Degen: Adumbratio Demonstrationis Theorematis Arithmetici Maxime Universalis. In: Mémoires de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg, pour les années 1817 et 1818. Volume 8, 1822, pp. 207-219.
personal data
SURNAME Sword, Carl Ferdinand
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sword, Karl Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1825
Place of death Copenhagen