Hermann Rothe (28 December 1882 in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

– 18 December 1923 in Vienna) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. Rothe studied at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

. He attained the

Doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

Engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

in 1909 in Vienna. Then he was assistant at the Vienna University of Technology, where he attained the

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 1910. In 1913 Rothe married and began to teach

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

at the Vienna University of Technology as

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

extraordinarius, and from 1920 as Professor ordinarius. In 1923 he died after a long

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical condi ...

. Rothe is known for his collaboration (1910–1912) with

Philipp Frank Philipp Frank (; March 20, 1884 – July 21, 1966) was an Austrian-American physicist, mathematician and philosopher of the early-to-mid 20th century. He was a logical positivism, logical positivist, and a member of the Vienna Circle. He was infl ...

special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between Spacetime, space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, Annus Mirabilis papers#Special relativity, "On the Ele ...

. Based on

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ( ...

, they tried to derive the

Lorentz transformation In physics, the Lorentz transformations are a six-parameter family of Linear transformation, linear coordinate transformation, transformations from a Frame of Reference, coordinate frame in spacetime to another frame that moves at a constant vel ...

without the postulate of the constancy of the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant exactly equal to ). It is exact because, by international agreement, a metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time i ...

.
In English: Furthermore, Rothe worked — outside his teaching activity — on mathematical problems like

Hermann Grassmann Hermann Günther Grassmann (, ; 15 April 1809 – 26 September 1877) was a German polymath known in his day as a linguist and now also as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, general scholar, and publisher. His mathematical work was littl ...

's "Ausdehnungslehre" (theory of extension, or

exterior algebra In mathematics, the exterior algebra or Grassmann algebra of a vector space V is an associative algebra that contains V, which has a product, called exterior product or wedge product and denoted with \wedge, such that v\wedge v=0 for every vector ...

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rothe, Hermann 1882 births 1923 deaths 19th-century Austrian mathematicians 20th-century Austrian mathematicians Mathematical physicists Group theorists Austrian relativity theorists University of Vienna alumni University of Göttingen alumni Academic staff of TU Wien Mathematicians from Austria-Hungary

Publications

See also

References