Jan de Vries (mathematician)

Jan de Vries

Jan de Vries (born March 1, 1858 in Amsterdam , † May 3, 1940 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch mathematician.

Life

De Vries was the son of the bookseller and antiques dealer Rubertus Jan de Vries (born August 26, 1821 in Amsterdam; † September 21, 1909 in Groningen) and his wife Henriette Auguste Frantzen (born May 10, 1826 in Kirschseiffen; † February 14 1886 in Kampen). He attended elementary school in his hometown, in 1871 the secondary school in Düsseldorf and in 1876 began studying mathematics at the University of Amsterdam . Here Carel Johannes Matthes (born March 3, 1811 in Amsterdam; † February 8, 1882 in Wiesbaden), Adrianus Jacobus van Pesch (born October 4, 1837 in Amsterdam; † April 5, 1916 in Bussum) and Johannes Diderik van der Waals his teachers. On July 2, 1881 he received his doctorate with the thesis Bolsystemen (German: Boolean systems ) to the doctor of natural sciences.

As early as 1880 he had become a teacher at the grammar school in Kampen , in 1892 he went to the high school in Haarlem and in 1894 became a teacher at the polytechnic school in Delft . In 1897 he was appointed professor of geometry at the University of Utrecht , which task he began on April 26, 1897 with the inaugural speech De meetkunde van het aantal (German: The geometry of the number ). Here he taught analytical, projective, descriptive and differential geometry. In the course of his professional career he wrote around 200 articles in the mathematical journals of his time. For example in the Rediconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo , in the meeting reports of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna , the Acta Mathematica , the mathematical annals , in the monthly notebooks for math and physics , in the Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde , in the Archiv de Musee Teyler and in the publications of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.

These dealt among other things with the theory of curved lines, the grouping of points and other questions in dealing with geometry. He was also a member of several international mathematical learned societies, such as the Circolo Matematico di Palermo . In 1894 he became a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences , was a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna and in 1912 became a Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion . He also took part in the organizational tasks of the Utrecht University and was rector of the Alma Mater in the 1908/09 academy year . After his retirement, in July 1928, he worked as an examiner for the Abitur exams and worked as a curator of the Utrecht municipal high school.

family

De Vries married on December 22, 1881 in Amsterdam Truitje Groote (born February 18, 1857 in Hoorn; † April 28, 1939 in Utrecht), the daughter of the Lutheran pastor Pieter Groote (born April 11, 1822 in Amsterdam; † 12. March 1857 in Hoorn) and his wife Anna Alida Lodewijks (born November 2, 1822 in Amsterdam, † February 19, 1865 in Amsterdam). The daughter Maria Sophia de Vries (* September 1885 in Kampen; † June 15, 1934 in Utrecht) and the son Jan de Vries (* around 1888 in Hoorn;) who met on August 19, 1919 in Hoorn are known from their marriage Henriette Wilhelmina Frederika Hetterschij (* around 1895 in Hoorn) married.

literature

• W. van der Woude: Levens report J. de Vries. In: Jaarboek van de Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, 1939-1940. Amsterdam, 1940, pp. 206-209 ( Online PDF )
• Onze Hoogleeraren. Portretten en Biografieën. Nigh & van Ditmar, Rotterdam, 1898, p. 222
• How is that? 1902. Vivat, Amsterdam, 1902, p. 484

Web links

• De Vries in the Catalogus Professorum Academiae Rheno-Traiectinae
• De Vries entry at the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences