Moritz Stern

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Moritz Abraham Stern

Moritz Abraham Stern , also Moriz Abraham Stern (born June 29, 1807 in Frankfurt am Main , † January 30, 1894 in Zurich ) was a German mathematician and the first Jewish professor at a German university.

Childhood and youth

Stern was the son of the Frankfurt wine merchant and protective Jew Abraham Süskind Stern (1764-1838) and his wife Vogel Eva Reiss (1775-1859). Both the father's and mother's family belonged to the long-established Jewish families of Frankfurt. Stern received a comprehensive education from private tutors in his parents' home. His father taught him Hebrew, Wolf Heidenheim (1757–1832) in oriental languages ​​and in Talmud and Torah .

The secular education of his time was also taken into account: Salomon Feibel (who later taught Abraham Geiger ) taught him Latin and Greek, a Mr. Crailsheim and above all Michael Creizenach (1789–1842) taught him mathematics. Unlike in many other Jewish families of the time, reading non-religious texts was permitted in the Stern house. Stern read the Romantics and was particularly enthusiastic about the novels by Caroline and Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué .

Education

Stern moved to the University of Heidelberg in the fall of 1826 , enrolled on the advice of Gauss student Michel Reiss (1805–1869) in the summer semester of 1827 in Göttingen, where he studied mathematics with Carl Friedrich Gauß and Bernhard Friedrich Thibaut , he studied physics and chemistry and beyond classical languages ​​with Karl Ottfried Müller.

On January 13, 1829, he passed the doctoral examination with the highest distinction. His examiner was Gauss, who stood in for Stern's exam because Thibaut was unable to attend for health reasons. Stern submitted his dissertation Observationum in fractiones continuas specimen on March 5, 1829. After the master’s examination on August 17, 1829, he received the venia docendi and taught as a private lecturer in Göttingen.

Career

Although Jews in the German states were excluded from civil service by anti-Semitic laws and Stern refused baptism , Heine's much-cited “Entreebillett zum European Kultur” (entry ticket to European culture), he trusted that with the progress made in the emancipation of Jews, the non-admission to academic state offices would cease to exist must. In fact, it took a full 30 years before he was appointed full professor. He was appointed associate professor on September 14, 1848 , and it was not until July 30, 1859 that he was appointed full professor at the Georg August University of Göttingen . Stern was sworn in together with Bernhard Riemann .

Stern received the prize of the Danish Society of Sciences in 1838 for the essay on the resolution of the transcendent equations (in: Journal for pure and applied mathematics, Vol. 22, 1841, pp. 1-62), in 1840 the prize of the Belgian Academy of Sciences for the article Recherches sur la théorie des résidus quadratiques (in: Mémoires couronnés par l'Académie des sciences de Belgique, vol. 15, 1841). In 1859 he became a member of the Königl. Bavarian Academy of Sciences , 1862 member of the Königl. Society of Sciences in Göttingen .

In 1884 Stern finished his service in Göttingen and moved to live with his son, the historian Alfred Stern , in Bern and in 1887 in Zurich, where he died in his son's house on January 30, 1894.

Stern was not a great mathematician and did not start a school. The Stern-Brocot tree , which played an important role in the calculation of mechanical translations before the computer age, and the Stern-Brocot sequence (star sequence) are still reminiscent of him today, next to the Sternstrasse in Göttingen .

The Frankfurt Reform Friends

Under the direction of Theodor Creizenach (1818–1877), around 20 educated Jewish men gathered in 1842 to "resolve the conflict between the religious statutes of Judaism and the demands of practical life". They founded the Frankfurt Association of Reform Friends , the first religiously radical grouping of German Jewry, to which Stern also belonged. The leading rabbis of the German Jews all distanced themselves from the Frankfurt reform friends. The number of members had quickly peaked at just 45 people, and after the club came out with its last announcement in December 1845, it went out. In the public discussion, Stern was the only member to defend the reform association in detailed and signed, sometimes polemical articles. Stern felt obliged to contribute to the renewal of what he saw as frozen and ossified Judaism and considered the reform to be the first "advance [...] that has happened in Judaism since Mendelssohn".

Works

  • Celestial science . Gutsch & Rupp, Karlsruhe 1844. Digitized

literature

  • Paul Arnsberg: The history of the Frankfurt Jews since the French Revolution. published by the Kuratorium für Jewish Geschichte eV, Frankfurt am Main, edited and completed by Hans-Otto Schembs , Darmstadt 1983.
    • Volume 1: The course of events.
    • Volume 2: Structure and Activities of Frankfurt Jews.
    • Volume 3: Biographical Lexicon.
  • S. Baer: Heidenheim. In: ADB. Vol. XI, Leipzig 1875-1912, pp. 300-301.
  • Adolf Brüll: Creizenach. In: ADB. Vol. XLVII, Leipzig 1875-1912, pp. 546-549.
  • Cantor: Tear. In: ADB. Vol. XXVIII, Leipzig 1875-1912, pp. 143-144.
  • Brian Hayes: On the Teeth of Wheels. In: American Scientist. Vol. 88, no. 4, 2000.
  • Martha Küssner: Carl Wolfgang Benjamin Goldschmidt and Moritz Abraham Stern, two Gauss students of Jewish origin. In: Communications of the Gauss Society. No. 19, Göttingen 1982, pp. 37-62.
  • Michael A. Meyer: Alienated Intellectuals in the Camp of Religious Reform: The Frankfurt Reformfreunde, 1842–1845. Association for Jewish Studies, Cambridge, Mass. 1981, OCLC 8067777 . (Special print from AJS review. Volume 6, 1981, pp. 61–86)
  • Ferdinand Rudio : Memory of Moriz Abraham Stern. In: Quarterly publication of the Natural Research Society in Zurich. Volume 39, Volume 2, Zurich 1894, pp. 131–143.
  • Norbert Schmitz: Moritz Abraham Stern (1807-1894). The first Jewish full professor at a German university and his work on popular gastronomy. Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2006, ISBN 3-86525-031-9 .
  • Alfred Stern: On the family history. Clarchen. Dedicated to March 22, 1906. (Printed as a manuscript). Zurich 1906.
  • Göttingen University Archives , Manuscript Department. Kur 4Vb 103a [Full professors, personal file Dr. Stern], cure 4Vc 48.
  • Aufgebauer , Peter: Baptism of Jews in the vicinity of the Göttingen University. In: Werner Meiners (ed.): Conversions of Jews to Christianity in Northwest Germany. (= Publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen. Volume 246). Hannover 2009, pp. 201-209.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 233.
personal data
SURNAME Stern, Moritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stern, Moritz Abraham (full name); Stern, Moriz Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and the first Jewish full professor at a German university
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1894
Place of death Zurich