Friedrich Prym

Friedrich Prym, 1909

Friedrich (Fritz) Emil Prym (born September 28, 1841 in Düren ; † December 15, 1915 in Bonn ) was a German mathematician who dealt almost exclusively with function theory.

Life

Prym was born as one of six children of the cloth manufacturer Richard Prym (1814-1894) and Ernestine Schoeller, a niece of Leopold Schoeller , and attended, like his brother, the later Orientalist Eugen Prym , the collegiate high school in Düren .

Prym then began to study mathematics in Berlin in the winter semester of 1859, where he attended lectures from Elwin Bruno Christoffel , with whom he became friends. In 1860/61 he interrupted his studies because he had to represent his sick father in the management of the factory, and then in 1861 studied chemistry with Robert Bunsen in Heidelberg. In the same year, on the advice of Christoffel, he went to Göttingen for two semesters to study function theory and partial differential equations with Bernhard Riemann . The encounter with Riemann was a formative experience. Riemann's methods (at that time not very widespread beyond Göttingen) he also used in his dissertation Theoria nova functionum ultraellipticarum. Pars prior on ultra-elliptical functions, which he then submitted to the number theorist Ernst Eduard Kummer in Berlin . In 1863 he received his doctorate with top marks.

After completing his studies, he began a traineeship at his uncle's bank in Vienna, but continued to occupy himself with mathematics, circulated Riemann's lectures on partial differential equations in Hattendorff's work in Vienna and published an essay on the in the communications of the Vienna Academy of Sciences in 1864 Extension of the methods of his dissertation to hyperelliptic functions. He got suggestions for this from Riemann himself, who was recovering from his illnesses in Padua in the spring of 1865. In the same year he applied for a professorship in Zurich, which he received through the mediation of Christoffel, who also taught there - the father's factory was later closed. His treatise on hyperelliptic functions, published in Zurich, contributed with that of the Riemann pupil Gustav Roch to make Riemann's ideas about Abelian functions (the generalizations of elliptic functions) understandable to other mathematical circles. Riemann himself and Roch died of tuberculosis in 1866.

From 1869 he was a professor in Würzburg (on the recommendation of Rudolf Clausius, who had also moved here from Zurich ) and received the newly created second chair for mathematics, which he held until his retirement in 1909. He turned down a call to the newly founded University of Strasbourg that he had received in 1872, after he had already received approval to set up a mathematics seminar in Würzburg, which he shared with Aurel Voss until 1903 . He was twice dean and 1897/98 rector of the university. In 1911 he became an honorary citizen of the city of Würzburg, where a street is named after him. At the beginning of the 20th century, Prym donated a papyrus collection to the University Library of Würzburg, which contains, among other things, the Sosylos papyrus from the 2nd century BC.

His students in Würzburg included Adolf Krazer , Robert Haußner and his close colleague and successor in Würzburg Georg Rost . With him he summarized his work in 1911 in the monograph Theory of Prym's Functions of the First Order in connection with the Creations of Riemann .

The Bavarian Academy of Sciences appointed him a corresponding member in 1872. In 1883 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1891 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Prym died on a trip to Bonn, where he was also buried, of shingles following an inguinal hernia operation. Prym varieties are named after him.

Prym had been married since 1867 and had four daughters. One of them, Erna Prym (* April 8, 1883, † October 23, 1973), was married to the German gynecologist and obstetrician Otto von Franqué . His daughter Frieda was the wife of the anatomist Rudolf Fick .

literature

Adolf Krazer: Friedrich Prym. Annual report DMV 1915
Otto Volk : Mathematics, astronomy and physics in the past of the University of Würzburg. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Neustadt ad Aisch 1982, pp. 751-785.
Hans-Joachim Vollrath , Thomas Heiler: Friedrich Prym (1841–1915): mathematician and honorary citizen of the city of Würzburg. Information document of the city archive from September 1991 to March 1992, Würzburg 1991 (= city archive Würzburg. Notes - information , 16).
Hans-Joachim Vollrath: About Aurel Voss' appointment to the chair for mathematics in Würzburg. In: Würzburger medical history reports , Volume 11, 1993, pp. 133–151.
Hans-Joachim Vollrath : Prym, Friedrich Emil. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 750 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Literature by and about Friedrich Prym in the catalog of the German National Library
Hans-Joachim Vollrath on Prym

supporting documents

↑ Axel W.-O. Schmidt: An American in Würzburg: How Carl Barus became a member of the Würzburg fraternity Arminia in 1876. In: Tempora mutantur et nos? Festschrift for Walter M. Brod on his 95th birthday. With contributions from friends, companions and contemporaries. Edited by Andreas Mettenleiter , Akamedon, Pfaffenhofen 2007 (= From Würzburgs Stadt- und Universitätsgeschichte, 2), ISBN 3-940072-01-X , pp. 297–307, here: p. 305
^ Gottfried Mälzer: Würzburg as a city of books. In: Karl H. Pressler (Ed.): From the Antiquariat. Volume 8, 1990 (= Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel - Frankfurter Ausgabe. No. 70, August 31, 1990), pp. A 317 - A 329, here: p. A 326.
↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 194.
↑ Manfred Stürzbecher: Fick, Rudolf Armin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 129 f. ( Digitized version ).

personal data
SURNAME	Prym, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Prym, Friedrich Emil Fritz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	September 28, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH	Düren
DATE OF DEATH	December 15, 1915
Place of death	Bonn

[1] Axel W.-O. Schmidt: An American in Würzburg: How Carl Barus became a member of the Würzburg fraternity Arminia in 1876. In: Tempora mutantur et nos? Festschrift for Walter M. Brod on his 95th birthday. With contributions from friends, companions and contemporaries. Edited by Andreas Mettenleiter , Akamedon, Pfaffenhofen 2007 (= From Würzburgs Stadt- und Universitätsgeschichte, 2), ISBN 3-940072-01-X , pp. 297–307, here: p. 305

[2] Gottfried Mälzer: Würzburg as a city of books. In: Karl H. Pressler (Ed.): From the Antiquariat. Volume 8, 1990 (= Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel - Frankfurter Ausgabe. No. 70, August 31, 1990), pp. A 317 - A 329, here: p. A 326.

[3] Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 194.

[4] Manfred Stürzbecher: Fick, Rudolf Armin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 129 f. ( Digitized version ).