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Mathematical Tourists in Karlovy Vary

  • Mathematical Tourist
  • Edited by Ma. Louise Antonette N. De Las Peñas
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Notes

  1. The presence of hot springs in the region is also reflected in the Czech name Karlovy Vary, since “vary” means boilings. Teplice, the name of a spa town a hundred kilometers to the northeast mentioned later in this article, is derived from the Czech word “teplý,” which means warm.

  2. Unfortunately, only a few volumes from the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth centuries are extant. Thus we were unable to check whether the name of Leibniz (see the next section) appeared in the Kurlisten.

  3. The Kurlisten are also available from https://k4.kr-karlovarsky.cz/. This online library offers the capability of “full-text” search in the digitized images, but it is far from perfect. For example, it does not find the records of Riemann, Volterra, and Courant mentioned later in this paper.

  4. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was a German mathematician, philosopher, and diplomat. In mathematics, he is best known as one of the inventors of infinitesimal calculus, and the notation he proposed is still in use.

  5. Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) was a German mathematician who is best known for his contributions to real and complex analysis, differential geometry, and analytic number theory. The so-called Riemann hypothesis regarding the eponymous Riemann zeta function is the most famous unsolved problem in mathematics.

  6. Gösta Mittag-Leffler (1846–1927) was a leading Swedish mathematician, an expert in complex function theory, and founder of the Acta Mathematica, which he edited for 45 years.

  7. Vito Volterra (1860–1940) was a leading Italian mathematician, a pioneer of functional analysis, integral equations, and mathematical biology. His name appears in the so-called Lotka–Volterra equations, which model the dynamical system in which a predator species and a prey species interact. He was a plenary speaker at the International Congresses of Mathematicians in 1900, 1908, and 1920.

  8. See http://en.kvmuz.cz/o-nas-muzeum-reditelstvi.

  9. Giovanni Battista Guccia (1855–1914) was an Italian algebraic geometer, founder of the Circolo Matematico di Palermo and its journal, the Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo.

  10. Francesco Severi (1879–1961) was an outstanding Italian algebraic geometer. He was a plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1924.

  11. Constantin Carathéodory (1873–1950) was an excellent Greek mathematician who spent most of his life in Germany. He is best known for his contributions to measure theory, real analysis, and the calculus of variations.

  12. See https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vila_Tereza_(Karlovy_Vary).

  13. See https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%AFm_Telegraf.

  14. Richard Courant (1888–1972) was an influential German-American mathematician, an expert in applied mathematics and mathematical physics.

References

  1. E. J. Aiton. Leibniz: A biography. Adam Hilger Ltd., 1985.

  2. M. R. Antognazza. Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  3. B. Bongiorno and G. P. Curbera. Giovanni Battista Guccia: Pioneer of International Cooperation in Mathematics. Springer, 2018.

  4. S. Burachovič. Slavní návštěvníci Karlových Varů (Famous visitors of Karlovy Vary, in Czech). Nakladatelství MH, 2003.

  5. M. Georgiadou. Constantin Carathéodory: Mathematics and Politics in Turbulent Times. Springer, 2004.

  6. J. R. Goodstein. The Volterra Chronicles: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary Mathematician, 1860–1940. American Mathematical Society and London Mathematical Society, 2007.

  7. F. Jaëck, L. Mazliak, E. Sallent Del Colombo, and R. Tazzioli (editors). Gösta Mittag-Leffler and Vito Volterra: 40 Years of Correspondence. European Mathematical Society, 2019.

  8. MacTutor. 1904 ICM – Heidelberg. Available at https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/ICM/ICM_Heidelberg_1904/.

  9. MacTutor. Francesco Severi. Available at https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Severi/.

  10. E. Neuenschwander. Lettres de Bernhard Riemann à sa famille. Cah. Sémin. Hist. Math., 1. Sér., tome 2 (1981), 85–131.

  11. Porta fontium. Available at https://portafontium.eu/contents/kurliste/.

  12. C. Reid. Courant. Copernicus, 1996.

  13. H. G. Schulte-Albert. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and library classification. Journal of Library History 6 (1971), 133–152.

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  14. A. Stubhaug. Gösta Mittag-Leffler: A Man of Conviction. Springer, 2010.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Milan Augustin and Antonín Mařík for providing several historical documents and helpful information on the history of Karlovy Vary.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Sokolovská 83, 186 75, Praha 8, Czech Republic

    Antonín Slavík & Jiří Veselý

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  1. Antonín Slavík
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Correspondence to Antonín Slavík.

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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. Submissions should be submnitted through the journal’s website, https://www.springer.com/journal/283, or sent directly to Ma. Louise Antonette N. De Las Peñas. E-mail: mathtourist1@gmail.com.

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Slavík, A., Veselý, J. Mathematical Tourists in Karlovy Vary. Math Intelligencer 45, 266–277 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-023-10297-z

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