Gustaf Eneström

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Gustaf Hjalmar Eneström (born September 5, 1852 in Nora , † June 10, 1923 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish mathematician, mathematician and librarian.

Life

Bibliotheca Mathematica title 1905.png

Eneström was the son of a coal mine owner, went to school in Stockholm and studied mathematics in Uppsala from 1870 (graduated in 1871). He then worked as a librarian, first at the Uppsala Observatory in 1874, then at the Uppsala University Library and from 1879 at the Royal Library in Stockholm . From 1901 he was a librarian at various other state libraries, e. B. at that of the appellate court.

In his time he was one of the most important mathematicians, known for the "Eneström directory" of the works of Leonhard Euler (which lists 866 works). He also published Euler's correspondence with Johann I Bernoulli . From 1884 to 1914 Eneström was the editor of the mathematics-historical journal "Bibliotheca Mathematica", which he founded (and partly printed at his own expense). First it appeared (on the initiative of Eneström) as an appendix to the Acta Mathematica by Gösta Mittag-Leffler , from 1887 independent. From 1899 it was published by Teubner in Leipzig. It was one of the most important mathematics history journals of the 19th century.

In his journal, he devoted a large part of his labor to criticizing Moritz Cantor's lectures on the history of mathematics , the central work on the history of mathematics in the 19th century. The criticism, although partially justified, became a kind of obsession for him, which in the end aroused increasing alienation among his colleagues, so that in the end he wrote a corresponding section in his magazine mostly alone. Eneström maintained extensive correspondence with numerous mathematical historians, even with Moritz Cantor himself. Later, he had hardly any connections with the central figure of Swedish mathematics of the 19th century, Mittag-Leffler. He did not bequeath his own extensive library to the Mittag-Leffler Institute, but to Stockholm University. It is kept in the depository library of the Swedish Public Libraries in Bålsta.

In addition to numerous treatises on the history of mathematics (first on the history of the isoperimetric problem in the yearbook of Uppsala University in 1876 ), mostly published in his journal Bibliotheca Mathematica (and in the yearbook on the progress of mathematics), he also published on insurance and statistics. Sōichi Kakeya's theorem about bounds for the roots of a polynomial with positive coefficients was published by him as early as 1893 (Kakeya published it in 1912).

Eneström never married. He was a member of the academies in Padua, Madrid and the Swiss Society for Natural Sciences .

Fonts (selection)

  • Swedish libraries. In: Central Journal for Libraries. Jg. 4, 1887, pp. 329-334 ( online ).

literature

  • Gottwald, Ilgauds, Schlote Lexicon of Important Mathematicians , 1990
  • Joseph W. Dauben , Christoph Scriba (Eds.) Writing the history of mathematics , 2002
  • Gustaf Eneström: Leading article in the journal “Bibliotheca Mathematica” / compiled by Gabriele Dörflinger. 2018 Digital Univ. Heidelberg
  • Gustaf Eneström: Moritz Cantor's lectures on the history of mathematics from the point of view of his critic Gustaf Eneström / compiled by Gabriele Dörflinger. 2014 Digital Univ. Heidelberg

Web links

Wikisource: Bibliotheca Mathematica  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kirsti Andersen , article Eneström in Dauben, Scriba Writing the history of mathematics , 2002.
  2. ↑ according to Kirsti Andersen in Dauben, Scriba, loc.cit., Possibly due to a general disdain for mathematics historiography in the circle of Mittag-Leffler
personal data
SURNAME Eneström, Gustaf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eneström, Gustaf Hjalmar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Nora (Sweden, location)
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1923
Place of death Stockholm