Heinrich Friedrich Karl Ludwig Burkhardt (15 October 1861 – 2 November 1914) 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 ...

. He famously was one of the two examiners of

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

PhD thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

''Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen''. Of Einstein's thesis he stated: "The mode of treatment demonstrates fundamental mastery of the relevant mathematical methods" and "What I checked, I found to be correct without exception."

Biography

Burkhardt was born in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban ag ...

. Starting from 1879 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 ...

Alexander von Brill Alexander Wilhelm von Brill (20 September 1842 – 18 June 1935) was a German mathematician. Born in Darmstadt, Hesse, Brill was educated at the University of Giessen, where he earned his doctorate under supervision of Alfred Clebsch. He held a c ...

, and

Hermann Amandus Schwarz Karl Hermann Amandus Schwarz (; 25 January 1843 – 30 November 1921) was a German mathematician, known for his work in complex analysis. Life Schwarz was born in Hermsdorf, Silesia (now Jerzmanowa, Poland). In 1868 he married Marie Kummer, ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

(at university and technical university),

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

and Göttingen. He attained a doctorate in 1886 in Munich under

Gustav Conrad Bauer Gustav Conrad Bauer (18 November 1820, Augsburg – 3 April 1906, Munich) was a German mathematician, known for the Bauer-Muir transformation and Bauer's conic sections. He earned a footnote in the history of science as the doctoral advisor (''Dokt ...

with a thesis entitled: ''Beziehungen zwischen der Invariantentheorie und der Theorie algebraischer Integrale und ihrer Umkehrungen'' (Relations between the invariant theory and the theory of algebraic integrals and their inverses). In 1887 he was an assistant at

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

and obtained his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

there in 1889. Later he was a professor in Zürich (1897–1908) and Munich (since October 1908). He worked on the theory of the elliptical functions,

series expansion In mathematics, a series expansion is an expansion of a function into a series, or infinite sum. It is a method for calculating a function that cannot be expressed by just elementary operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and divisi ...

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as rings, fields, and vector spaces, can all be seen ...

, the

Burkhardt quartic In mathematics, the Burkhardt quartic is a quartic threefold in 4-dimensional projective space studied by , with the maximum possible number of 45 nodes. Definition The equations defining the Burkhardt quartic become simpler if it is embedded in ...

, and history of mathematics. He died in Neuwittelsbach/

München Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, of a disease of the stomach, diagnosed about Easter 1914.

Works

* 1899
Elliptische Funktionen, zweiter Tiel
from Internet Archive * 1903
Algebraische Analysis
from Internet Archive * 1908
Entwicklungen nach oscillierenden Funktionen und Integration der Differentialgleichungen der mathematischen physick
* 1913
Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable
translated by S.E. Rasor, link from

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

References

External links

* * * *
Einstein's dissertation

Heinrich Liebmann „Zur Erinnerung an Heinrich Burkhardt“, Jahresbericht DMV Bd.24, 1915, S.185-195
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burkhardt, Heinrich Friedrich Karl Ludwig 19th-century German mathematicians 20th-century German mathematicians German historians of mathematics Technical University of Munich alumni Technical University of Munich faculty 1861 births 1914 deaths

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links