Ettore Bortolotti (6 March 1866 – 17 February 1947) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

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 ...

Biography

Bortolotti was born in

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

. He studied

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 ...

under

Salvatore Pincherle Salvatore Pincherle (March 11, 1853 – July 10, 1936) was an Italian mathematician. He contributed significantly to (and arguably helped to found) the field of functional analysis, established the Italian Mathematical Union (Italian: "''Unio ...

and

Cesare Arzelà Cesare Arzelà (6 March 1847–15 March 1912) was an Italian mathematician who taught at the University of Bologna and is recognized for his contributions in the theory of functions, particularly for his characterization of sequences of continuo ...

in Bologna. He graduated in mathematics in 1889 at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

, under Pincherle. He was appointed as lecturer to the Lyceum of Modica in

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

in 1891, then studied one year in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

as a post-graduate, before lecturing at the University of Rome in 1893. In 1900, he became professor for

infinitesimal calculus Calculus is the 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 calculus of ...

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

. There, he became dean from 1913 to 1919, then moved back to the University of Bologna, where he retired in 1936. He was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1924 in Toronto and in 1928 in Bologna. Bortolotti must also be considered a differential geometer and a relativist too. In fact, in the year 1929, he commented on the geometric basis for

Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

’s absolute parallelism theory in a paper entitled "Stars of

congruences In abstract algebra, a congruence relation (or simply congruence) is an equivalence relation on an algebraic structure (such as a group (mathematics), group, ring (mathematics), ring, or vector space) that is compatible with the structure in the ...

and absolute parallelism: Geometric basis for a recent theory of Einstein".E. Bortolotti, ''On metric connections with absolute parallelism'', Proc. Kon. Akad. Wet. Amsterdam 30 (1927), 216-218. His son Enea was a mathematician too. Bortolotti died in

Selected works

* ''On metric connections with absolute parallelism'', Proc. Kon. Akad. Wet. Amsterdam 30 (1927), 216-218. * ''Reti di Cebiceff e sistemi coniugati nelle V_n riemanniane'', Rend. Reale Acc. dei Lincei (6a) 5 (1927), 741-747. * ''Stelle di congruenze e parallelismo assoluto: basi geometriche di una recente teoria di Einstein'', Rend. Reale Acc. dei Lincei 9 (1929), 530-538. * ''I primi algoritmi infiniti nelle opere dei matematici italiani del secolo XVII'' (1939) * ''L'Opera geometrica di Evangelista Torricelli'' (1939) * ''Le fonti della matematica moderna. Matematica sumerica e matematica babilonese'' (1940) * ''Influenza del campo numerico sullo sviluppo delle teorie algebriche'' (1941) * ''Il carteggio matematico di Giovanni Regiomontano con Giovanni Bianchini, Giacomo Speier e Cristiano Roder'' (1942) * ''La pubblicazione delle opere e del carteggio matematico di Paolo Ruffini'' (1943) * ''Il problema della tangente nell'opera geometrica di Evangelista Torricelli'' (1943) * ''Le serie divergenti nel carteggio matematico di Paolo Ruffini'' (1944) * ''Il carteggio matematico di Paolo Ruffini'' (1947)

Notes

External links

* *
An Italian biographical note of Ettore Bortolotti
in ''Archivio storico dell'Università di Bologna''
An Italian short biography of Ettore Bortolotti
in ''Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana'' online. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bortolotti, Ettore 1866 births 1947 deaths Scientists from Bologna Italian historians of mathematics Differential geometers Italian relativity theorists