Otto Haupt (born 5 March 1887 in

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

; died 10 November 1988 in

Bad Soden Bad Soden am Taunus (, ), commonly known as Bad Soden, is a town and spa in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hessen, Germany. It had a population of 22,563 , up from 21,412 in 2005. Information Bad Soden is a residential town for commuters working in F ...

) was a German mathematician.

Biography

Haupt obtained his PhD in 1911 under the supervision of Georg Rost and

Emil Hilb Emil Hilb (born 26 April 1882 in Stuttgart; died 6 August 1929 in Würzburg) was a German-Jewish mathematician who worked in the fields of special functions, differential equations, and difference equations. He was one of the authors of the '' ...

at the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. Founded in 1402, it is one of the ol ...

, and became a professor at the

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

. He retired from teaching in 1953, but continued his mathematical research for many subsequent years.. Since 1918 he was married to Edith Hughes. Despite her Jewish ancestry, she survived the Nazi period unharmed in Erlangen, and lived to 1981.

Research and publications

Haupt specialized in

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

and

real analysis In mathematics, the branch of real analysis studies the behavior of real numbers, sequences and series of real numbers, and real functions. Some particular properties of real-valued sequences and functions that real analysis studies include co ...

; many of his research publications related to the

four-vertex theorem In geometry, the four-vertex theorem states that the curvature along a simple, closed, smooth plane curve has at least four local extrema (specifically, at least two local maxima and at least two local minima). The name of the theorem derives ...

on local minima and maxima of curvature. He also wrote textbooks on

algebra Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...

and

calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...

Awards and honors

In 1987, his centenary year, a birthday conference was given in his honor at the University of Erlangen.. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

, the

University of Nantes Nantes University () is a public university located in the city of Nantes, France. In addition to the several campuses scattered in the city of Nantes, there are two satellite campuses located in Saint-Nazaire and La Roche-sur-Yon. The university ...

and the

.Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988, p. 236: "Haupt war Ehrendoktor der Universitäten Bonn, Würzburg und Nantes".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haupt, Otto 1887 births 1988 deaths 20th-century German mathematicians University of Würzburg alumni Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg German men centenarians