Shōda Kenjirō

Shōda Kenjirō ( Japanese 正 田 建 次郎 ; born February 25, 1902 in Tatebayashi , Gunma Prefecture , Japanese Empire ; † March 20, 1977 in Ashikaga ) was a Japanese mathematician who studied algebra .

Shōda went to school in Tokyo and the eighth national high school in Nagoya. He then studied at the University of Tokyo, particularly with Teiji Takagi . In 1925 he graduated, worked on representation theory of groups and continued his studies in Berlin with Issai Schur and in Göttingen with Emmy Noether . In 1929 he returned to Japan and wrote an influential algebra textbook in Japan ( Abstract Algebra ), which first appeared in 1932 and in its 12th edition in 1971. It spread the ideas of the Noether School (which were spread in the West, in particular through the textbook by Bartel Leendert van der Waerden found) in Japan.

In 1933 he became a professor at Osaka University . After the Second World War , as chairman of the Japanese Mathematical Society (from 1946), he was involved in rebuilding mathematics. In 1947 his book General Algebra was published . In 1949 he became dean of the Faculty of Science at Osaka University and from 1954 to 1960 he was president of the university. During this time he set up an engineering faculty in Osaka and was its first dean from 1961. Even after his retirement, he advised on the improvement of university education and became President of Musashi University . He died unexpectedly of a heart attack on a family trip to Ashikaga to see the plum blossom.

In 1949 he received the Prize of the Japanese Academy of Sciences , in 1953 he became a member of the Academy. In 1969 he received the Order of Culture .

Matsushima Yozō is one of his PhD students .

He was married twice. From his first marriage to the daughter of the astronomer Hirayama Shin (1868–1945) he had a son and two daughters, from his second marriage after the death of his first wife he had a son. The Empress Michiko is one of his nieces.

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Shōda Kenjirō. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
• Hirosi Nagao: Kenjiro Shoda 1902-1977 , Osaka Journal of Mathematics, Volume 15, Issue 1 (1978), iv.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Shōda is the family name, Kenjirō the first name.