Hans Heinrich Wilhelm Magnus

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Hans Heinrich Wilhelm Magnus , he published as Wilhelm Magnus , (born February 5, 1907 in Berlin ; † October 15, 1990 in New York City ) was a German mathematician who mainly dealt with group theory, special functions and mathematical physics.

Life

After graduating from high school in Tübingen, Wilhelm Magnus studied mathematics and physics at the universities of Tübingen and Frankfurt am Main from 1925 to 1930 and received his doctorate in 1930 under Max Dehn . In 1933 he completed his habilitation in Frankfurt and was a private lecturer at the University of Frankfurt until 1938 . As a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship holder, he was at Princeton University in 1934/35 . From 1939 he worked at the Albertina in Königsberg and in 1940 moved to the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg, where he was appointed associate professor in 1942. He was also employed in the research department of the Berlin-Wannsee Navy. However, because he refused to join the National Socialist Party , his career came to a standstill. During this time he dealt with mathematical tables for the special functions of mathematical physics, which he later benefited from in the USA. In 1944 he was appointed full professor at Königsberg University .

From 1946 to 1949 Magnus was a full professor at the University of Göttingen ; In 1947/48 he was visiting professor at the Institute of Technology Pasadena (now CalTech) in California, USA. In 1948 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1950 he moved to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University and in 1973 to a chair at the Polytechnic Institute of New York , where he retired in 1978.

Act

His main area of ​​research was combinatorial group theory . In America he worked from 1948 on the Bateman Manuscript Project des Caltech (the posthumous manuscripts on special functions by Harry Bateman ), the main editor of which was Arthur Erdélyi (other employees were Fritz Oberhettinger and Francesco Tricomi ). He also looked at functions of mathematical physics such as the solutions to the Mathieu equation and the Hill equation.

In 1932 he solved the word problem for groups with a relation.

He was considered an excellent teacher, had numerous doctoral students, including Fritz Oberhettinger , Friedrich Wilhelm Schäfke , Joan Birman , Bruce Chandler , Abe Shenitzer , Seymour Lipschutz , Harry Hochstadt , Donald Solitar and Herbert Keller , and received the New Great Teacher Award in 1969 York University. He was a Rockefeller Fellow in 1934, a Guggenheim Fellow in 1969 and a Fulbright-Hayes Senior Research Scholar in 1973/74. He was a member of the German Mathematicians Association from 1932 to 1934 and from 1938 until his death.

Fonts

  • Collected papers. Editors Bruce Chandler, Gilbert Baumslag . Springer 1984.
  • with Israel Grossman: Groups and their graphs. Klett Verlag 1971, first in English at Random House 1964.
  • Hill's equation. Wiley 1966.
  • with Fritz Oberhettinger: Formulas and theorems for the special functions of mathematical physics. Springer 1943, 2nd edition 1948, 3rd edition (English) 1966.
  • with Fritz Oberhettinger: Applications of the elliptical functions in physics and technology. Springer 1949.
  • None uclidean tessellations and their groups. Academic Press 1974.
  • with Abraham Karrass, Donald Solitar: Combinatorial group theory -presentations of groups in terms of generators and relations. Interscience, New York 1966, 2nd edition, Dover 1976.
  • with Bruce Chandler: The History of Combinatorial Group Theory. A Case Study in the History of Ideas. Springer 1982.

literature

  • Abe Shenitzer: Memory of my friend Wilhelm Magnus. Mathematical Intelligencer No. 2, 1995.

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. 158.
personal data
SURNAME Magnus, Hans Heinrich Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Magnus, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1990
Place of death New York City