Friedrich L. Bauer

Friedrich L. Bauer (2004)

Friedrich Ludwig Bauer (born June 10, 1924 in Regensburg ; † March 26, 2015 ) was a German pioneer in computer science . In the 1950s he constructed several encryption machines, invented the basement storage principle in 1957 , held the first official computer science lecture in Germany at the Technical University of Munich in 1967 and organized the first computer exhibition in the Deutsches Museum in 1988 . His publications on cryptology are standard works in computer science.

Training and teaching

Friedrich L. Bauer was the son of the book reviser Ludwig Bauer. He grew up in Thaldorf and passed his Abitur in 1942 at the Ludwigs-Oberrealschule in Munich (today: Erasmus-Grasser-Gymnasium ). During the Second World War , Bauer was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1943 and was a soldier until the end of the war in 1945. In 1946 he began studying mathematics, physics, logic and astronomy at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich (LMU), which he graduated in 1950.

He worked for six months as a study assessor at the Gisela secondary school in Munich, then as an assistant to Fritz Bopp at the LMU, where he received his doctorate in 1952. Two years later he completed his habilitation with Robert Sauer .

From 1958 to 1962, Bauer taught as a professor for applied mathematics at the University of Mainz . In 1963 he followed a call as a mathematics professor at the Technical University of Munich . There he initiated the computer science course in 1967 and gave the first computer science lecture in Germany. Until his retirement in 1989, he held the chair for computer science at the Technical University of Munich.

From 1984 to 1995 he was director of the holiday academy at the University of Erlangen and the Technical University of Munich. From 1970 to 1995 he was director of the International Summer School in Marktoberdorf .

His doctoral students include professors David Gries , Manfred Broy , Peter Deussen , Christoph Zenger , Josef Stoer , Helmuth Partsch , Carlos Delgado Kloos , Gerhard Seegmüller , Rudolf Berghammer and Manfred Paul .

Private life

Bauer became interested in music at an early age and played the piano. He lived in Kottgeisering near Munich. He was married and the father of three sons and two daughters.

plant

Bauer carried out research in the fields of algebra , numerical analysis , programming languages and methods, software engineering and mathematical logic . He is also the author of one of the fundamental works on the subject of cryptology . In particular, the history of computer science occupied him to the last.

In numerical mathematics, among other things, he developed iteration methods for eigenvalue problems and the factorization of polynomials.

From 1951 to 1975 he had a consulting contract with Siemens AG , in 1950/51 he developed the Stanislaus logic machine , completed in 1956 , in 1953 he submitted a patent for error-detecting and correcting codes, and in 1957, together with Klaus Samelson, a patent for the Principle of the stack memory (basement principle) , for which the IEEE gave it the Computer Pioneer Award in 1988.

Since 1956 he participated in the international cooperation that led to the creation of the programming languages Algol 58 and Algol 60 .

He was committed to the recognition of computer science as a full academic subject. In 1967 there were special lectures in computer science for the first time at the Technical University of Munich , where in 1972 the independent course in computer science was created at the Technical University of Munich.

Bauer played a key role in the creation of several exhibitions at the Deutsches Museum : for Computer Science and Automation (1988), for Microelectronics (1990) and the Mathematical Cabinet (1999).

He was also known for his research on the subject of cryptology and gave the first lecture on this topic at a chair for computer science, which - as he reports in one of his books - once brought visitors from Pullach in a lecture , by which he meant the Federal Intelligence Service . He published numerous books on cryptology.

Honors

• 1968: Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in the math and science class
• 1971: Bavarian Order of Merit
• 1978: Wilhelm Exner Medal (Austria)
• 1982: Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• 1984: Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• 1986: Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art
• 1987: Honorary member of the Society for Computer Science
• 1988: Golden Ring of Honor of the Deutsches Museum
• 1988: Computer Pioneer Award
• 1997: Heinz Maier Leibnitz Medal from the Technical University of Munich
• 1998: corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
• 2002: Honorary member of the Deutsches Museum
• 2004: Silver Medal of Merit from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences

Friedrich L. Bauer served as a German soldier towards the end of World War II. In 1944 he received the Iron Cross, 2nd class .

The Friedrich L. Bauer Prize for Computer Science of the Technical University of Munich , which has been awarded since 1992, is named after him. Also at the Technical University of Munich, the largest lecture hall in the mathematics and IT building was named after him in 2014.

Honorary doctorates

• 1974: Honorary doctorate from the University of Grenoble
• 1989: Honorary doctorate from the University of Passau
• 1998: Honorary doctorate from the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich ( Neubiberg )

Fonts

• with Hermann Bottenbruch , Heinz Rutishauser and Klaus Samelson : Proposal for a universal language for the description of computing processes. 1958.
• with Josef Stoer : Algebra. In: Robert Sauer , István Szabó (Hrsg.): The mathematical tools of the engineer. Volume 3, Springer, Berlin a. a. 1968.
• with Gerhard Goos : Computer Science. 2 volumes. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1971; 4th edition 1991/1992, ISBN 3-540-52790-7 , ISBN 3-540-55567-6 .
• Andrei and the monster. 6 lessons in computer science. Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-7627-3047-4 .
• with Hans Wössner: Algorithmic Language and Program Development. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1982, ISBN 3-540-11148-4 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-642-61807-9
• with Martin Wirsing : Elementary propositional logic. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1991, ISBN 3-540-52974-8 .
• (Ed.) Logic, Algebra, and Computation. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1991, ISBN 3-540-54315-5 .
• Cryptology. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-540-57771-8 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-642-78869-7 .
• Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1995; 3rd edition 2000, ISBN 3-540-67931-6 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-642-58345-2 .
• Decrypted Secrets. Methods and Maxims of Cryptology. Springer, Berlin a. a. 1997; 4th edition 2006, ISBN 3-540-24502-2 .
• Historical notes on computer science. Springer, Berlin a. a. 2009, ISBN 3-540-85789-3 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-540-85790-7 .
• Brief history of computer science Fink, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 3-7705-4379-3 .

literature

• Hanna Lauterbach: "There are things here that are surprising!" In: KontakTUM - Alumni magazine of the TU Munich. 2004/2, p. 4f. ( PDF; 313 kB ).
• Obituary by Detlef Borchers : Fighting the burden of monotonous intellectual activity - on the death of the computer science pioneer Friedrich L. Bauer . heise.de, March 28, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich L. Bauer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Friedrich L. Bauer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Friedrich Ludwig Bauer in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English) : there list of academic descendants
• Entry about Friedrich Ludwig Bauer in the database of the Wilhelm Exner Medal Foundation .
• Self-presentation (audio; 1:17 min) in digital masterminds on Deutschlandfunk , December 3, 2011
• Bauer about the Enigma, public keys and other crypto topics in a long interview from 1996
• The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on April 4, 1989 about Bauer
• An obituary by Dominik Landwehr in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on April 2, 2015
• Author profile in the database zbMATH

Individual evidence

1. ↑ together with Klaus Samelson
2. ↑ Before that, the TU Munich and some other universities only offered "IT courses".