Friedrich Adolf Willers

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Friedrich Adolf Willers (born January 29, 1883 in Bremervörde ; † January 5, 1959 in Dresden ) was a German applied mathematician .

Life

Grave of Friedrich Adolf Willers in the Leubnitz-Neuostra cemetery

Willers was born in Bremervörde in 1883 and attended high school in Stade . From 1903 he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Jena and from 1904 at the University of Göttingen , where he received his doctorate under Carl Runge in 1907 ( The torsion of a rotational body around its axis , an iterative graphical approximation method was developed in detail), in which he was also an assistant from 1905. In 1907/1908 he was an assistant at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Göttingen. After completing his teaching degree , in 1908 he first became an assistant for descriptive geometry and graphic statics at the University of Danzig , and from 1909 he worked as a teacher in Göttingen , Wilhelmshaven , Bünde and Berlin . In 1915 he wrote the contribution in the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences on numerical integration of differential equations.

He completed his habilitation in 1928 at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg and then worked there as a private lecturer . In the same year he succeeded Erwin Papperitz as professor of mathematics and descriptive geometry at the Bergakademie Freiberg . In November 1933 he signed the confession of the German professors about Adolf Hitler , but was forced out of office in 1934 (he had to apply for his retirement ). He then worked with Erich Trefftz from the Technical University of Dresden on problems of elasticity theory and, after his death, was his successor as editor of GAMM's “Journal for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics” , which he remained for 20 years. In 1944 he became a full professor for applied mathematics at the Technical University of Dresden, where, after the reopening in 1946, he was significantly involved in the rebuilding of the mathematics institute. As the responsible manager, he also supported the construction and installation of the first electronic computers by Nikolaus Joachim Lehmann . From 1949 to 1954 he was the first dean of the newly founded Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. He retired in 1956 and died three years later. His grave is in Dresden at the Leubnitz-Neuostra cemetery .

Willers was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , from 1954 of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and since 1955 of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin . In 1952, the Technical University of Darmstadt awarded him an honorary doctorate , and a year later he was awarded the GDR National Prize. In 1961, the mathematics building of the Dresden University of Technology was named Willers-Bau .

Friedrich Adolf Willers was married to Else Hueg (1889–1970). The son Hans-Georg (1916–1923) died in childhood, daughter Annemarie (1918–1988) became a font designer and worked from 1946 to 1965 at the TH Dresden. She designed the astronomical clock on the Trefftz building (since 2007 on the Willers building), for which her father made the necessary calculations. She is also responsible for the font design of the names on some.

Fonts

  • Methods of practical analysis 1928, 4th edition 1971 (English translation Graphical analysis - practical and numerical methods, New York 1948)
  • Mathematical instruments 1943, expanded as "Mathematical machines and instruments" 1951
  • Elementary Mathematics, Dresden, Leipzig 1948, 12th edition 1965

literature

  • Gottwald, Ilgauds, Schlote: Lexicon of important mathematicians . Leipzig 1990, p. 492.
  • Ingeborg Küchler: Dr. phil., Dr. rer. nat. hc, Dr. E. h. Friedrich Adolf Willers, full professor for applied mathematics and dean of the faculty of mathematics and natural sciences . Dresden, Technical University, thesis, 1977.
  • Annette Vogt:  Willers, Friedrich Adolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

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Footnotes

  1. ^ Niels-Christian Fritsche: History of the artistic basic training at the Technical University of Dresden. (No longer available online.) Technische Universität Dresden - Faculty of Architecture - Professorship for Presentation Theory, archived from the original on October 2, 2013 ; Retrieved September 28, 2013 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Willers, Friedrich Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremervörde
DATE OF DEATH 5th January 1959
Place of death Dresden