Mathias Lerch or Matyáš Lerch (; 20 February 1860, Milínov – 3 August 1922,

Sušice Sušice (; ) is a town in Klatovy District in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 11,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument zones, urban mon ...

) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

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 ...

who published about 250 papers, largely on

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series ( ...

and

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

. He studied in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

(

Czech Technical University Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) () is one of the largest universities in the Czech Republic with 8 faculties, and is one of the oldest institutes of technology in Central Europe. It is also the oldest non-military technical universi ...

) and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

; subsequently held teaching positions at the

University of Fribourg The University of Fribourg (; ) is a public university located in Fribourg, Switzerland. The roots of the university can be traced back to 1580, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, the Brno University of Technology in

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

, and finally at then newly founded (1920)

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) (; ) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno, it now consists of ten faculties and 35,115 students. It is named after To ...

in Brno where he became its first mathematics professor. In 1900, he was awarded the Grand Prize of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

for his number-theoretic work. The

Lerch zeta function In mathematics, the Lerch transcendent, is a special function that generalizes the Hurwitz zeta function and the polylogarithm. It is named after Czech mathematician Mathias Lerch, who published a paper about a similar function in 1887. The Ler ...

is named after him, as is the Appell–Lerch sum. His doctoral students include

Michel Plancherel Michel Plancherel (; 16 January 1885 – 4 March 1967) was a Swiss people, Swiss mathematician. Biography He was born in Bussy, Fribourg, Bussy (Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland) and obtained his Diplom in mathematics from the University of Fribou ...

and

Otakar Borůvka Otakar Borůvka (10 May 1899 – 22 July 1995) was a Czech mathematician. He is best known for his work in graph theory.. Education and career Borůvka was born in Uherský Ostroh, a town in Moravia, Austria-Hungary (today in the Czech Republic) ...

References

External links

* 1860 births 1922 deaths Czech mathematicians Academic staff of Masaryk University Academic staff of the University of Fribourg Mathematicians from Austria-Hungary {{europe-mathematician-stub