Karl Heun (mathematician)

Karl Heun (born April 3, 1859 in Wiesbaden , † January 10, 1929 in Karlsruhe ) was a German mathematician .

Life

Karl Heun studied mathematics and philosophy in Göttingen (and briefly in Halle) where he received his doctorate in 1881 on the subject of spherical functions and Lamé functions as determinants . He then worked as a teacher at an agricultural school in Wehlau until he emigrated to England in 1883, where he taught in Uppingham until 1885 .

He completed his studies in London and completed his habilitation in June 1886 in Munich on the subject of linear differential equations of the second order, the solutions of which are linked by the continued fraction algorithm . From 1886 to 1889 he taught at the University of Munich , but had to work again as a teacher in Berlin from 1890 to 1902 due to a lack of financial support.

In 1900 Karl Heun was awarded the title of professor and in 1902 took over the chair for theoretical mechanics at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , where he worked until his retirement in 1922.

plant

The Heun method is named after him, a simple method for the numerical solution of initial value problems .

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Heun in the catalog of the German National Library
• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Karl Heun. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .