Lulu Hofmann Bechtolsheim

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Lulu Hofmann Bechtolsheim (born May 27, 1902 in New York City , † August 29, 1989 in Redlands (California) ) was an American mathematician and university professor.

life and work

Bechtolsheim was born as Lulu Hofmann in New York to German parents. She graduated from the Realgymnasium of the Schillerschule in Frankfurt am Main in 1922 with the Abitur, which corresponded to an American Abitur plus a year or two at university. From 1922 to 1923 she studied mathematics at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and from 1923 to 1926 at the University of Zurich . In 1927 she did her doctorate in mathematics under Eugenio Giuseppe Togliatti with the dissertation: "About some special ray congruences that are related to analytical functions". During her stay in Zurich, she also took part in mathematics seminars by Hermann Weyl and George Pólya at the ETH Zurich , with whom she stayed in contact in the years to come. She also met Albert Einstein and John von Neumann at ETH . Shortly thereafter, she moved to the United States and in 1927 gave a presentation based on her PhD at a meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) in Chicago . From 1927 to 1929 she was a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia University in New York City as an assistant to mathematics professor Edward Kasner . From 1929 to 1936 she taught at Barnard College . She did research in geometry at least until 1931 and gave two lectures per year in 1928, 1930 and 1931 about her work at the AMS meetings in New York City. In 1936 she met Baron Wilhelm Alfred von Bechtolsheim on board a ship en route from Germany to New York City, where he worked for the German film company UFA in New York City. They married in 1936. In 1937 she taught at Hunter College , New York City, and from 1937 to 1940 at Queens Coeducational College, City University of New York . In 1938 she went on a trip to Europe and by 1944 she and her husband had moved to California. From 1943 to 1944 she was a lecturer in mathematics at Stanford University and in 1944 became an assistant professor at the University of Redlands . In 1950 she became an associate professor here and in 1956 a professor until her retirement in 1961, where she also taught astronomy, Italian, French and German.

Memberships

Publications (selection)

  • 1928: Hofmann, L .: Synthetic proof of Professor Kasner's pentagon theorem. Amer. Math. Monthly 35.
  • 1928: Hofmann, L .; E. Kasner: Homographic circles or clocks. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 34.
  • 1929: Hofmann, L .: On a certain metric aspect of plane projective transformations. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 35.
  • 1955: Translation from English: Symmetrie, by H. Weyl. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.
  • 1962: Translation from English: Mathematics and plausible reasoning. Volume I: Induction and Analogy in Mathematics, G. Polya. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag
  • 1963: Translation from English: Mathematics and plausible reasoning. Volume II: Types and Structures of Plausible Inference, G. Polya. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.
  • 1965: Translation from Portuguese: The Haar Integral, L. Nachbin. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand. Review: Zbl 127.07602 (H. Boseck).
  • 1965: Translation from Portuguese: Topology and Order, L. Nachbin. Van Nostrand Mathematical Series 4. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
  • 1966: Translation from English: On solving mathematical problems. Insight and discovery, learning and teaching. Volume I, G. Polya. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.
  • 1967: Translation from English: On solving mathematical problems. Insight and discovery, learning and teaching. Volume II, G. Polya. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.
  • 1974: Translation from Portuguese: The Art of Seeing in Mathematics, B. de Finetti. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hofmann Bechtolsheim, Lulu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hofmann, Lulu (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1989
Place of death Redlands, California