Erik Ivar Fredholm (7 April 1866 – 17 August 1927) was a Swedish

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 ...

whose work on

integral equation In mathematical analysis, integral equations are equations in which an unknown function appears under an integral sign. In mathematical notation, integral equations may thus be expressed as being of the form: f(x_1,x_2,x_3,\ldots,x_n ; u(x_1,x_2 ...

s and

operator theory In mathematics, operator theory is the study of linear operators on function spaces, beginning with differential operators and integral operators. The operators may be presented abstractly by their characteristics, such as bounded linear operato ...

foreshadowed the theory of

Hilbert space In mathematics, a Hilbert space is a real number, real or complex number, complex inner product space that is also a complete metric space with respect to the metric induced by the inner product. It generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. The ...

Biography

Fredholm was born in Stockholm in 1866. He obtained his PhD at

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

in 1898, under the supervision of

Gösta Mittag-Leffler Magnus Gustaf "Gösta" Mittag-Leffler (16 March 1846 – 7 July 1927) was a Sweden, Swedish mathematician. His mathematical contributions are connected chiefly with the theory of functions that today is called complex analysis. He founded the pre ...

. He was ''docent'' at

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

from 1898 to 1906 and professor from 1906 until his death. In 1914 he was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

and in 1922 a foreign member of the

Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters (, , ) is a Finnish learned society for natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It is a bilingual (Swedish and Finnish) science academy and the oldest of the four science academies in Finland. ...

. Beside his academic career he was recruited to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency when it was founded in 1902. He later served as an actuary at the insurance company Skandia (1904-1927), where his Fredholm equation was used to calculate buyback-prices. From 1911, he was married to Agnes Maria Liljeblad, the secretary of Mittag-Leffler.

Mathematical work

In , Fredholm introduced and analysed a class of integral equations now called Fredholm equations. His

analysis Analysis (: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...

included the construction of Fredholm determinants, and the proof of the Fredholm theorems.

Honours

Fredholm was a member of the

and of the

Accademia dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

; he was awarded the Poncelet Prize for 1908. The lunar crater '' Fredholm'' is named after him as is the asteroid 21659 Fredholm.

Publications

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Notes

References

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External links

* * * Evans M. Harrell II,
A Short History of Operator Theory
' (2004) 1866 births 1927 deaths 19th-century Swedish mathematicians 20th-century Swedish mathematicians People from Stockholm {{Sweden-mathematician-stub