Strife in the Academy of Sciences

Abstract

One of the last things that had landed on Mittag-Leffler’s desk before he left the Hôtel Zermatt in Switzerland was what he called an “extremely offensive” letter from Kronecker. In the letter Kronecker disavowed any further friendship or contact. Mittag-Leffler thought the reason for this was that Kronecker had not been chosen as a member of the committee for the King Oscar II Prize, nor had his advice been sought regarding the formulation of the questions. In the November 1885 volume of Acta Mathematica, the mathematics prize was officially announced. Four prize questions were proposed. The first asked how bodies in space move when they are influenced by gravitational forces – with the three-body problem as a special case. Another way of phrasing the question was: “Is our solar system stable?” This was a question that had preoccupied mathematicians and astronomers since the beginning of the 19th century. The three other prize questions had to do with diverse generalizations of elliptic and hyperelliptic functions, and thus they were more closely connected to current mathematics research. The submitted treatises were to have an epigram but they would be anonymous. The deadline was June 1, 1888. The jury members were Weierstrass, Hermite, and Mittag-Leffler, and the prize – a gold medallion worth 1,000 francs, along with 2,500 kronor in cash – would be awarded on the king’s sixtieth birthday, January 21, 1889.