Karl Kommerell

Karl Kommerell (oil painting, 1937)

Karl Kommerell (born August 19, 1871 in Achern , † July 30, 1962 in Tübingen ) was a German mathematician . He was a professor at the University of Tübingen.

Life

Karl Kommerell was the third child of the founder of the popular Tübingen café Adolf Kommerell (1841–1890) and his wife Minna geb. White (1846-1931). His younger brother was the deserving railway construction engineer Otto Kommerell . Kommerell attended the Tübingen grammar school and then the Maulbronn and Blaubeuren seminars up to the state examination . He was then - like his relative Victor Kommerell - accepted into the Tübingen monastery and studied mathematics. Similar to Ferdinand Kommerell and Victor, he was interested in geometry. He studied with Alexander von Brill and Hermann von Stahl , among others . Following his regular studies, which he graduated with the state examination in 1895, he wrote the dissertation under Alexander von Brill on the curvature of two-dimensional structures in the flat space of four dimensions , thanks to which he earned his doctorate in 1897. He then went to Paris for a year to continue his studies there.

In 1900 he began working in the Württemberg civil service - as senior preceptor in Ravensburg . In 1901 he switched to the grammar school in Heilbronn as a mathematics professor . In 1908 he switched to the Friedrich-Eugen-Realschule in Stuttgart. During this time he wrote his habilitation thesis , which he presented in 1911 at the Technical University of Stuttgart . He then taught at this university. In 1921 he was appointed associate professor and in 1922 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen . In 1925 he was declared a full professor and as such he worked at the university until his retirement in 1936. After the end of the Second World War, Kommerell resumed lecturing for a short time in 1945 at the request of the faculty as emeritus. He was also the chairman of the Mathematical and Natural Science Association in Württemberg.

meaning

Karl Kommerell was an excellent geometer and capable teacher, to whom the relationships between school and elementary mathematics and mathematical science were particularly important. By highlighting this important border area, he made a decisive contribution to the didactics of mathematics that has become significant. Through his solid textbooks, some of which he worked on together with Victor Kommerell, as well as through numerous courses and lectures and his work as a board member of the Mathematical-Natural Science Association in Württemberg, he knew how to bring the teachers at the secondary schools closer to science . He can be seen as the true originator of the Romberg integration , as he applied the Richardson extrapolation (in his 1936 book) several times to another problem .

In addition to his extensive work as an author and editor of scientific books, Kommerell published a collection of Gôgen jokes under the pseudonym Romeo together with Victor Kommerell and Hermann Cuhorst during the First World War , which was distributed to soldiers.

children

• Gertrud (born June 2, 1900 in Gmünd , ⚭ 1922 in Stuttgart, the production engineer Nikolaus Glöckler)
• Hildegard (born January 29, 1906 in Heilbronn, studied humanities, ⚭ 1937 in Tübingen the commercial school councilor Hermann Ziegler)

Publications

• The curvature of two-dimensional structures in a flat space of four dimensions , dissertation University of Tübingen 1897
• with Victor Kommerell: General theory of space curves and surfaces [from the 4th edition as: Theory of space curves and curved surfaces ].
  • Vol. 1: Leipzig: Göschen: 1st edition 1903 (= Schubert Collection, 29), 2nd edition 1909, 3rd edition 1921; Berlin: de Gruyter: 4th edition, 1931 (= Göschen's teaching library, 1, 20)
  • Vol. 2: Leipzig: Göschen: 1st edition 1903 (= Schubert Collection, 44), 2nd expanded edition 1911, 3rd edition 1921; Berlin: de Gruyter: 4th edition, 1931 (= Göschen's teaching library, 1, 21)
• Purely geometric justification of the theory of proportions and surface area . In: "Mathematische Annalen" 66, 1909
• with Victor Kommerell: Special Surfaces and Theory of Radiation Systems , Leipzig: Göschen 1911 (= Schubert Collection, 62)
• On the doctrine of proportions and area , Stuttgart: Hammer 1912
• The Sylvester plagiograph and the theory of proportions . In: “Annual Report of the German Mathematicians' Association” 21, 1912
• with Victor Kommerell: Analytical Geometry :
  • Vol. 1: Tübingen: Laupp: 1911, 2nd edition 1913, 3rd improved edition 1917, 4th edition 1921, 6th edition 1929; Stuttgart: Bonz: 5th edition 1926;
  • Vol. 2: Tübingen: Laupp: 1912, 2nd edition 1917, Stuttgart: Bonz: 3rd edition 1927
  • Vol. 3 Solutions to the exercises: Tübingen: Laupp: 1919;
• with Victor Kommerell: Analytical Geometry for School Use , Tübingen: Laupp 1921
• About the torsion of the zero system, the space curves of constant torsion and the elliptical geometry , ed. from the Württemberg Society for the Advancement of Science, Tübingen: JCB Mohr 1922 (published together with a treatise by Ludwig Maurer)
• The concept of the limit value in elementary mathematics, 1922
• Exercises on synthetic geometry from the Württemberg trainee examinations for mathematicians , Leipzig: Teubner 1925
• The border area of ​​elementary and higher mathematics , Leipzig: KF Koehler 1936
• Lectures on analytical geometry of space , Leipzig: KF Koehler 1940 (2nd unchanged edition, Koehler & Amelang 1949; 2nd revised edition, Stuttgart: Koehler 1950, 3rd unchanged edition, Koehler & Amelang 1953)
• Lectures on analytical geometry of the plane , Leipzig: KF Koehler 1941 (2nd unchanged edition, Koehler & Amelang 1949, 3rd unchanged edition, Koehler & Amelang 1953)

editor

• George Salmon ; Otto Wilhelm Fiedler : Analytical geometry of space [A treatise on the analytic geometry of three dimensions],
  • Vol. 1: The elements and the theory of the surfaces of the second degree , 4th, improved edition, Leipzig: Teubner 1898

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Otto Kommerell: Family Chronicle Kommerell ... , p. 180.
2. ↑ Otto Kommerell: Family Chronicle Kommerell ... , p. 161.
3. ↑ ^{a b} German Biographical Encyclopedia , Vol. 5, p. 847.
4. ^ G. Walz: The history of extrapolation methods in numerical analysis , University of Mannheim 1991, quoted from Claude Brezinski: Some pioneers of extrapolation methods . In: Adhemar Bultheel, Ronald Cools (Ed.): The birth of numerical analysis , World Scientific 2010, p. 5.

literature

• German Biographical Encyclopedia , 2nd, revised and expanded edition, Vol. 5, Munich: KG Saur 2006, p. 847.
• Kuno Fladt :  Kommerell, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 480 ( digitized version ).
• Obituary. In: "Atempto" 1962, issue 10, p. 46.
• J. Ch. Poggendorff: Biographisch-literarischs concise dictionary to the exact sciences , Berlin: Akademie-Verlag: Bd. 7a part 2, 1958; Vol. 5: 2000.
• Otto Kommerell: Family Chronicle Kommerell. Family tree with 79 pictures and 15 tables drawn up between 1915–1942 , Frankfurt a. M.: Kramer 1943.
• Prof. Dr. Kommerell 70 years old . In: "NS-Kurier", August 19, 1941.

Web links

• Karl Kommerell in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)