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Karl Weierstraß: A Westphalian Mathematician

  • The Mathematical Tourist
  • Ma. Louise Antonette De Las Peñas, Editor
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Figure 6

Notes

  1. Although many readers will be more familiar with the spelling Weierstrass, in this paper we use the usual German spelling.

  2. For aspects of Weierstraß’s life and work, see [4].

  3. For more information on the plaque, see [1, p. 13].

  4. A sort of continental Wessex.

  5. To complicate matters further, let us mention that Ostenfelde never belonged to the Duchy of Westphalia, which covered only a southern part of the region and was ruled by the prince-bishop of Cologne, nor to the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia, which lay largely outside historic Westphalia.

  6. The 15th edition first appeared in 1974 and was revised and reprinted almost annually until 2010.

  7. That is, at a time when there existed two German states; see [8].

  8. For most of the following biographical facts, see Elstrodt’s excellent account [1] of the first 40 years of Weierstraß’s life.

  9. Sometime between 1824 and 1826.

  10. Crelle’s journal is the popular name for the Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, established by the mathematician August Leopold Crelle in 1826.

  11. There had been some earlier papers, but they were published in yearbooks of the schools where Weierstraß taught, with very limited circulation.

  12. The spelling mistake was corrected in his collected works; see [12].

  13. A fourth sibling, Peter, was a secondary school teacher at one of the schools where his brother had taught before; none of the siblings ever married.

  14. After a breakdown in 1861, Weierstraß lectured seated, and a student did the writing.

  15. The author was born in Everswinkel, 20 km from Ostenfelde. He has a Bavarian grandmother whom his Westphalian grandfather met during his studies in Munich.

References

  1. Jürgen Elstrodt. Die prägenden Jahre im Leben von Karl Weierstraß. In Karl Weierstraß (1815–1897), edited by Wolfgang König and Jürgen Sprekels, pp. 11–51. Springer Spektrum, 2016.

  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Karl Weierstrass, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Weierstrass. Last accessed on September 17, 2020.

  3. Adolf Kneser. Leopold Kronecker. Jahresber. Deutsch. Math.-Verein. 33 (1925), 210–228.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Wolfgang König and Jürgen Sprekels (eds.). Karl Weierstraß (1815–1897). Springer Spektrum, 2016.

  5. Edwin McDowell, Encyclopaedia Britannica Revised. New York Times, March 25, 1985.

  6. Reinhold Remmert. Theory of Complex Functions, translated by Robert B. Burckel. Springer, 1991.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  7. C. Runge. Persönliche Erinnerungen an Karl Weierstraß. Jahresber. Deutsch. Math.-Verein. 35 (1926), 175–179.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, Volume X: Tiranë–Żywny. Chicago, 1974.

  9. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, Volume 12: Trudeau–Żywiec. Chicago, 1985.

  10. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, Volume 12: Trudeau–Żywiec. Chicago, 2010.

  11. C. Weierstrass. Zur Theorie der Abelschen Funktionen. J. Reine Angew. Math. 47 (1854), 289–306.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Karl Weierstraß. Mathematische Werke, Volume 1. Mayer & Müller, Berlin 1894.

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Acknowledgements

The maps in Figures 2 and 4 were produced with the R package GADMTools. The author is very grateful to Jean Pierre Decorps for his help. The photo in Figure 1 is used with permission of the Heimatverein Ostenfelde. The other photos were taken by the author.Footnote 15

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  1. Département de Mathématique, Université de Mons, 20 Place du Parc, 7000, Mons, Belgium

    Karl-Goswin Große Erdmann

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  1. Karl-Goswin Große Erdmann
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Correspondence to Karl-Goswin Große Erdmann.

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Does your hometown have any mathematical tourist attractions such as statues, plaques, graves, the café where the famous conjecture was made, the desk where the famous initials are scratched, birthplaces, houses, or memorials? Have you encountered a mathematical sight on your travels? If so, we invite you to submit an essay to this column. Be sure to include a picture, a description of its mathematical significance, and either a map or directions so that others may follow in your tracks.

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Große Erdmann, KG. Karl Weierstraß: A Westphalian Mathematician. Math Intelligencer 42, 60–63 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-020-10026-w

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