Friedrich Heinrich Schur (27 January 1856, Maciejewo,

Krotoschin Krotoszyn (german: Krotoschin, yi, קראטאשין ''Krotoshin'') is a town in west-central Poland with 30,010 inhabitants . It has been part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; it was within Kalisz Voivodeship (1975–1998), Kali ...

, Province of Posen – 18 March 1932, Breslau) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who studied

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

Life and work

Schur's family was originally

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, but converted to Protestantism. His father owned an estate. He attended high school in

and in 1875 studied at

University of Wroclaw A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

astronomy and mathematics under Heinrich Schröter and Jacob Rosanes. He then went to the

Berlin University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

, where he studied under

Karl Weierstrass Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (german: link=no, Weierstraß ; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician often cited as the "father of modern analysis". Despite leaving university without a degree, he studied mathematics ...

Ernst Eduard Kummer Ernst Eduard Kummer (29 January 1810 – 14 May 1893) was a German mathematician. Skilled in applied mathematics, Kummer trained German army officers in ballistics; afterwards, he taught for 10 years in a '' gymnasium'', the German equivalent of h ...

Leopold Kronecker Leopold Kronecker (; 7 December 1823 – 29 December 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory, algebra and logic. He criticized Georg Cantor's work on set theory, and was quoted by as having said, "'" ("God made the integers, ...

and

Gustav Kirchhoff Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (; 12 March 1824 – 17 October 1887) was a German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects. He ...

and received his doctorate in 1879 from Kummer: ''Geometrische Untersuchungen über Strahlenkomplexe ersten und zweiten Grades''. In 1880, he passed the exam and the same year qualified as a teacher at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

. After that, he was an assistant professor and in 1884 became an assistant to

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 grou ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. In 1885 he was an associate professor there in 1888 and professor at the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...

. In 1892, he was a professor of descriptive geometry at the RWTH Aachen University and in 1897 was a professor at the

University of Karlsruhe The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 w ...

, where he was also rector in 1904/1905. In 1909, he became a professor at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

. After the loss of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he was sacked by the French in 1919 and became a professor in Breslau, where he retired in 1924. Friedrich Schur studied differential geometry, transformation groups ( Lie groups) after

Sophus Lie Marius Sophus Lie ( ; ; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. Life and career Marius Soph ...

. Many of his results, which he summarized in his book ''Grundlagen der Geometrie'' (Foundation of Geometry) of 1909, can also be found in the work of David Hilbert without reference to Schur. He also wrote a textbook of analytical geometry (1898) and the graphical statics (1915). In 1912, he received the

Lobachevsky Prize The Lobachevsky Prize, awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Lobachevsky Medal, awarded by the Kazan State University, are mathematical awards in honor of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky. History The Lobachevsky Prize was established ...

for his book ''Grundlagen der Geometrie'', a Russian prize. In 1910, he was chairman of the German Mathematical Society. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Karlsruhe. In 1927, he was selected as a corresponding member of the

Bavarian Academy of Sciences The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...

. Among his students was Theodor Molien and Julius Wellstein.

Writings (selection)

*Schur
''Grundlagen der Geometrie.''
Teubner, Leipzig 1909. *Schur
''Lehrbuch der analytischen Geometrie.''
*Schur
''Zur Theorie der endlichen Transformationsgruppen.''
Mathematische Annalen, Bd.38, 1891. *Schur
''Ueber den Fundamentalsatz der projectiven Geometrie.''
Mathematische Annalen, Bd.51, 1899. *Schur
''Ueber die Grundlagen der Geometrie.''
Mathematische Annalen, Bd. 55, 1902

References

The original article was a Google translation of the corresponding German article.
Biographie von Fritsch, pdf-Datei
(86 kB)
Mathematics Genealogy Project

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schur, Friedrichk 19th-century German Jews 19th-century German mathematicians 1856 births 1932 deaths 20th-century German mathematicians People from the Province of Posen

Life and work

Writings (selection)

See also

References

External links