John button maker
John Peter Louis Knopfmacher (born January 20, 1937 in Johannesburg , † May 29, 1999 in Graz ) was a South African mathematician.
Life
The father Walter Knopfmacher was born in Berlin and was an electrical engineer at AEG before emigrating to South Africa. John Knopfmacher first studied bookkeeping and then mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand . While still a student, his first publication on perfect numbers appeared in the Mathematical Gazette in 1960. In 1958 he received his bachelor's degree and in 1961 his master's degree. He then went to the University of Manchester , where he received his doctorate in 1965 with John Frank Adams ( Extensions in Varieties of Groups and Algebras ). After returning to the University of Witwatersrand (1965) he became a Lecturer , 1966 Senior Lecturer and 1971 Reader and Associate Professor and 1979 Professor. From 1984 to 1994 he was head of the mathematics department at his university and became a City of Johannesburg professor. In 1992 he founded the Center for Applicable Analysis and Number Theory at the university, which was named after him in 1999. In 1997 he retired and moved to Melbourne . Most recently he was visiting professor at the University of Graz .
He dealt with algebra ( non-associative algebras, finite groups , Lie algebras ) and topology before turning to analytical number theory in 1970 . In particular, he established an abstract (algebraic) approach to analytic number theory, which was also the title of his monograph from 1975. For this he developed the theory of arithmetic semigroups (arithmetic of free commutative semigroups with one element and real-valued multiplicative norm with some additional properties). The theory also allows, for example, the consideration over finite bodies.
He was married to Rose Hendler in 1959 until the divorce in 1991 and had three children. His son Arnold Knopfmacher is also a mathematician, with whom John Knopfmacher published around 35 joint works. In 1991 he married Beverley Woolf.
In 1995 he received the Medal for Lifetime Achievement of the South African Mathematical Society and for many years was the editor of their journal Quaestiones Mathematicae. In 1991 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa.
Fonts
- Abstract analytic number theory, North Holland 1975, Reprint Dover 1990.
- Analytic arithmetic of algebraic function fields, Marcel Dekker 1979.
- New edition with Wen-Bin Zhang: Number theory arising from finite fields: Analytic and probabilistic theory, Marcel Dekker 2001.
literature
- Doron Lubinsky: John Knopfmacher - a mathematical biography, Qaestiones Mathematicae, Volume 24, 2001, pp. 261-262
- John Knopfmacher - Mathematical and other memories, Quaestiones Mathematicae, Volume 24, 2001, pp. 263–268 (list of publications from p. 417)
Web links
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : John Knopfmacher. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
- John Knopfmacher - a life in mathematics , University of Witwatersrand
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Knopfmacher in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)
- ↑ The results were published in Knopfmacher Extensions in varieties of groups and algebras , Acta Mathematica, Volume 115, 1966, pp. 17-50
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Button maker, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Button maker, John Peter Louis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 20, 1937 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Johannesburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 29, 1999 |
| Place of death | Graz |