Carl David Tolmé Runge (; 30 August 1856 – 3 January 1927) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
mathematician,
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
, and
spectroscopist.
He was co-developer and co-
eponym of the
Runge–Kutta method (
German pronunciation: ), in the field of what is today known as
numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods t ...
.
Life and work
Runge spent the first few years of his life in
Havana, where his father Julius Runge was the Danish consul. His mother was Fanny Schwartz Tolmé.
The family later moved to
Bremen
Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state con ...
, where his father died early (in 1864).
In 1880, he received his Ph.D. in mathematics at
Berlin, where he studied under
Karl Weierstrass. In 1886, he became a professor at the
Technische Hochschule Hannover in
Hanover,
Germany.
His interests included mathematics,
spectroscopy,
geodesy, and
astrophysics
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the he ...
. In addition to pure mathematics, he did experimental work studying
spectral line
A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to identi ...
s of various elements (together with
Heinrich Kayser), and was very interested in the application of this work to
astronomical spectroscopy
Astronomical spectroscopy is the study of astronomy using the techniques of spectroscopy to measure the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, ultraviolet, X-ray, infrared and radio waves that radiate from stars and othe ...
.
In 1904, on the initiative of
Felix Klein
Christian Felix Klein (; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and mathematics educator, known for his work with group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the associations between geometry and group ...
he received a call to the
University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...
, which he accepted. There he remained until his retirement in 1925.
Family
His daughter
Iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
also became a mathematician and his son
Wilhelm was an early developer of radar. Another of his daughters, Nerina (Nina), married the mathematician
Richard Courant
Richard Courant (January 8, 1888 – January 27, 1972) was a German American mathematician. He is best known by the general public for the book '' What is Mathematics?'', co-written with Herbert Robbins. His research focused on the areas of r ...
.
Honors
The crater
Runge Runge may refer to:
Locations
*Runge, Texas, a town, United States
* Runge (crater), a lunar crater Mare Smythii
Other uses
* Runge Newspapers, a newspaper chain in Ontario, Canada
*Inspector Heinrich Runge (though it is more often spelled ...
on the
Moon is named after him.
The Schumann-Runge bands of molecular oxygen are named after him and Victor Schumann.
See also
*
Runge's law
*
Runge's method for
Diophantine equations.
Works
Ueber die Krümmung, Torsion und geodätische Krümmung der auf einer Fläche gezogenen Curven(PhD dissertation, Friese, 1880)
Praxis der Gleichungen(G.J. Göschen, Leipzig, 1900)
*
Praxis der Gleichungen, zweite, verbesserte Auflage(W. de Gruyter, Berlin, 1921)
Analytische Geometrie der Ebene(B.G. Teubner, Leipzig, 1908)
Graphical methods; a course of lectures delivered in Columbia university, New York, October, 1909, to January, 1910(Columbia University Press, New York, 1912)
* Graphische Methoden (Teubner, 1912)
*
Graphische Methoden, dritte Auflage(Teubner, 1928)
Vektoranalysis(S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1919)
*
Vector Analysis(Methuen & Co., London, 1923); translated from 1919 German original by H. Levy
* Carl Runge und Hermann König
Vorlesungen über numerisches Rechnen(Springer, Heidelberg, 1924)
Bibliography
*
*
Iris Runge
Iris Anna Runge (1 June 1888 – 27 January 1966) was a German applied mathematician and physicist.
Life and work
Iris Runge was the eldest of six children of mathematician Carl Runge. She started studying physics, mathematics, and geograph ...
: ''Carl Runge und sein wissenschaftliches Werk'', Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1949.
References
External links
*
Biography*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Runge, Carl
1856 births
1927 deaths
University of Göttingen faculty
19th-century German mathematicians
19th-century German physicists
Numerical analysts
Scientists from Bremen
Spectroscopists
University of Hanover faculty
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
20th-century German mathematicians
20th-century German physicists