Gustav Herglotz

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Gustav Herglotz (and Steffi)

Gustav Ferdinand Maria Herglotz (born February 2, 1881 in Wallern , Bohemian Forest , † March 22, 1953 in Göttingen ) was a German mathematician .

Life

From 1899 Herglotz studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Vienna , where he also spent his youth. a. Lectures with Ludwig Boltzmann . During his studies, he made close friends with fellow students Paul Ehrenfest , Hans Hahn and Heinrich Tietze . In 1900 he went to Munich and did his doctorate there in 1902 under Hugo von Seeliger in astronomy (with a thesis that theoretically should explain the strong fluctuations in brightness of the newly discovered planetoid Eros , which, according to Herglotz, resulted from its elongated shape). He then went to Göttingen in 1902, where he completed his habilitation under Felix Klein in 1904 . In 1904 he became a private lecturer in astronomy and mathematics and in 1907 an associate professor. During his time in Göttingen, he also began to be interested in the theory of earthquakes, and in collaboration with Emil Wiechert , who was then expanding Göttingen into a center for earthquake research, he developed the Wiechert-Herglotz method for determining the velocity distribution in the interior of the earth from the known Duration of earthquake waves (an inverse problem ). Herglotz solved a special integral equation (of the Abel type ). In 1908 he became an associate professor in Vienna, but in 1909 he went to Leipzig as a full professor . There he was accepted as a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in 1914 . From 1925 until his retirement in 1947, he was back in Göttingen, succeeding Carl Runge in the chair of applied mathematics. In 1925 he was elected a corresponding member and in 1927 a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Herglotz made contributions in many areas of applied and pure mathematics. Is well-known set of Herglotz from differential geometry: Each Eifläche (closed convex surface ) of the three-dimensional real space , there are at least three closed geodesic lines . In applied mathematics, he dealt with celestial mechanics a. a. with the topics of electron theory current at the beginning of the 20th century, the special theory of relativity (1910), whereby he developed a relativistic theory of elasticity, the general theory of relativity as well as hydrodynamics and diffraction theory. In analysis he did a. a. Contributions to the theory of differential equations and to potential theory. He even made contributions to number theory (theory of the Dirichlet series 1905).

In 1915 he received the Richard Lieben Prize .

One of his students was Emil Artin , who received his doctorate with him in Leipzig in 1921.

His estate is kept by the Central Archives of German Mathematicians' bequests at the Lower Saxony State and University Library in Göttingen .

Contributions to the theory of relativity

  • In 1909 he (and independently also Fritz Noether ) formulated the Herglotz-Noether theorem for the movement of rigid Born bodies in the SRT. He also shows that the Lorentz transformations correspond to the hyperbolic movements (i.e. isometries of the hyperbolic space) and classified the one-parameter Lorentz transformations into loxodromic, parabolic, elliptical, and hyperbolic groups.
  • In 1911 he formulated a relativistic theory of elasticity . He introduced the Lorentz transformation for any direction of speed.

Works (selection and works accessible online)

literature

  • Siegfried Gottwald, Hans-Joachim Ilgauds, Karl-Heinz Schlote (ed.): Lexicon of important mathematicians . Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-323-00319-5 .
  • Heinrich Tietze:  Herglotz, Gustav Ferdinand Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 611 ( digitized version ).
  • H.-J. Rossberg Gustav Herglotz - a combination of pure mathematics and mathematical physics , in Herbert Beckert, Horst Schumann (Ed.) 100 Years of Mathematical Seminar at Karl Marx University Leipzig , VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1981.

Web links

Commons : Gustav Herglotz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 111.
  2. ↑ Herglotz, Gustav: About the calculation of retarded potentials . In: God. Message . No. 6, 1904, pp. 549-556.
  3. ↑ Sommerfeld, Arnold: On the theory of relativity II: Four-dimensional vector analysis . In: Annals of Physics . 338, No. 14, 1910, pp. 649-689. bibcode : 1910AnP ... 338..649S . doi : 10.1002 / andp.19103381402 .
  4. ↑ Herglotz, Gustav: About the body that can be described as rigid from the standpoint of the principle of relativity . In: Annals of Physics . 336, No. 2, pp. 393-415. bibcode : 1910AnP ... 336..393H . doi : 10.1002 / andp.19103360208 .
  5. ↑ Herglotz, Gustav: About the mechanics of the deformable body from the standpoint of the theory of relativity . In: Annals of Physics . 341, No. 13, 1911, pp. 493-533. bibcode : 1911AnP ... 341..493H . doi : 10.1002 / andp.19113411303 .
  6. ↑ a b Pauli, Wolfgang : The theory of relativity . In: Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences . 5, No. 2, 1921, pp. 539-776.
  7. ↑ G. Herglotz, On Einstein's theory of gravitation , Ber. about d. Relation to royal saxon society d. Science zu Leipzig, pp. 199-203 (1916).
personal data
SURNAME Herglotz, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herglotz, Gustav Ferdinand Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Wallern , Bohemian Forest
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1953
Place of death Goettingen