Gustav lejeune dirichlet biography
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Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet
German mathematician (1805–1859)
"Dirichlet" redirects here. For other uses, see Dirichlet (disambiguation).
In this article, the surname fryst vatten Lejeune Dirichlet.
Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (;[1]German:[ləˈʒœndiʁiˈkleː];[2] 13 February 1805 – 5 May 1859) was a German mathematician. In number theory, he proved special cases of Fermat's last theorem and created analytic number theory. In analysis, he advanced the theory of Fourier series and was one of the first to give the modern formal definition of a function. In mathematical physics, he studied potential theory, boundary-value problems, and heat diffusion, and hydrodynamics.
Although his surname is Lejeune Dirichlet, he is commonly referred to by his mononymDirichlet, in particular for results named after him.
Biography
[edit]Early life (1805–1822)
[edit]Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was born on 13 February 1805 in Düren, a town on the left bank o
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Dirichlet
Overview
- Authors:
- Uta C. Merzbach
Georgetown, TX, USA
- Provides a general context for the life of an influential European mathematician who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century
- Details the extent to which certain mathematicians of the period were affected by political and social circumstances as well as by their own contributions
- Shows how representatives of science, politics, and the arts interacted in the early nineteenth century
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About this book
This is the first extensive biography of the influential German mathematician, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805 – 1859). Dirichlet made major contributions to number theory in addition to clarifying concepts such as the representation of functions as series, the theory of convergence, and potential theory. His mathematical methodology was explicitly based on a thorough knowledge of the work of his predecessors and his be
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Dirichlet, Gustav Peter Lejeune
(b. Düren, Germany, 13 February 1805; d. Göttingen, Germany, 5 May 1859)
mathematics.
Dirichlet, the son of the town postmaster, first attended public school, then a private school that emphasized Latin. He was precociously interested in mathematics; it is said that before the age of twelve he used his pocket money to buy mathematical books. In 1817 he entered the Gymnasium in Bonn. He is reported to have been an unusually attentive and well-behaved pupil who was particularly interested in modern history as well as in mathematics.
After two years in Bonn, Dirichlet was sent to a Jesuit college in Cologne that his parents preferred. Among his teachers was the physicist Georg Simon Ohm, who gave him a thorough grounding in theoretical physics. Dirichlet completed his Abitur examination at the very early age of sixteen. His parents wanted him to study law, but mathematics was already his chosen field. At the time the level of pure mathematic