Paul Kustaanheimo
Paul Edwin Kustaanheimo (born April 12, 1924 in Turku (Åbo), Finland , † August 24, 1997 in his house near Lyngby ) was a Finnish astronomer and mathematician .
Life
Kustaanheimo studied astronomy, mathematics and physics at the University of Helsinki from 1941 to 1950 . In 1947 he made his diploma (Phil. Cand.), In 1950 he received his doctorate and from 1951 he was a private lecturer at the university. At the same time he was a research assistant from 1945, assistant from 1951 and from 1952 (and until 1958) observer at the Helsinki Observatory. In 1958 he became an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Helsinki. From 1964 he was a full professor of applied mathematics and from 1969 professor of astronomy at the University of Helsinki and at the same time director of the observatory from 1969 to 1971. From 1971 he was a research professor at the Finnish Academy of Sciences. He left Finland in protest of changes to the observatory as a result of the political upheavals of the 68s. In 1975 he became a professor (engineering lecturer ) at the Danish Technical University in Lyngby near Copenhagen , where he taught mathematics.
In addition to celestial mechanics and the theory of gravity (as well as observing astronomy at the beginning of his career), Kustaanheimo also dealt with the fundamentals of geometry and finite geometries, spin algebra, the philosophy of science and the history of science. He worked with Eduard Stiefel (regularization of the Kepler movement with spinors ), Konrad Bleuler in theoretical physics and Rolf Nevanlinna (geometry) and Bertil Qvist (finite geometry and finite bodies).
In 1962 he gave a lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Stockholm (On Spinor Ring Algebra) .
The asteroid Kustaanheimo was named after him.
Fonts
- With Bertil Qvist : A note on some general solutions of the Einstein field equations in a spherically symmetric world. In: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 13, No. 16, 1948, pp. 1-11
- With Rolf Nevanlinna: Fundamentals of Geometry. Birkhäuser 1976. (Appendix on finite geometries by Kustaanheimo)
- G. Järnefelt & P. Kustaanheimo: An observation on finite geometries , The 11th Skandinaviske Matematikerkongress, Trondheim (1949), pp. 166–182.
swell
- Communications from the Astronomical Society. Volume 44, 1978, p. 236 (list of members).
- Short biography ( Memento from June 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Biography of Juhana Kustaanheimo, General Relativity and Gravitation, Volume 30, 1998, No. 4 , (PDF)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kustaanheimo, Paul |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kustaanheimo, Paul Edwin (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Finnish astronomer and mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 12, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Turku |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 24, 1997 |
| Place of death | at Lyngby (Lyngby-Taarbæk Kommune) |