Hans Samelson (3 March 1916 – 22 September 2005) was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unit ...

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 worked in differential geometry,

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ho ...

and the theory of

Lie groups In mathematics, a Lie group (pronounced ) is a group that is also a differentiable manifold. A manifold is a space that locally resembles Euclidean space, whereas groups define the abstract concept of a binary operation along with the addi ...

and

Lie algebras In mathematics, a Lie algebra (pronounced ) is a vector space \mathfrak g together with an operation called the Lie bracket, an alternating bilinear map \mathfrak g \times \mathfrak g \rightarrow \mathfrak g, that satisfies the Jacobi iden ...

—important in describing the symmetry of analytical structures.

Career and personal life

The eldest of three sons, Samelson was born on 3 March 1916, in

Strassburg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the E ...

, Germany (now Strasbourg, France). His brother

Klaus Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus * Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American baseb ...

later became a mathematician and early computer science pioneer in Germany. His parents—one of Protestant and one of Jewish background—were both pediatricians. He spent most of his youth in Breslau,

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is spli ...

, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), and began his advanced mathematical education there, at the University of Breslau. His family helped him leave Nazi Germany in 1936 for Zurich, Switzerland, where he studied with the geometer

Heinz Hopf Heinz Hopf (19 November 1894 – 3 June 1971) was a German mathematician who worked on the fields of topology and geometry. Early life and education Hopf was born in Gräbschen, Germany (now , part of Wrocław, Poland), the son of Elizabeth ( ...

and received his doctorate in 1940 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In 1941, he accepted a position at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

in Princeton and immigrated to the United States; he arrived by ship six months before the United States entered World War II and acquired U.S. citizenship several years later. After leaving Princeton, he held faculty positions at the University of Wyoming (1942–1943), Syracuse University (1943–1946) and the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

(1946–1960) before coming to Stanford in 1960. He was recognized with the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1977. He served as chair of the Mathematics Department from 1979 to 1982. Though he became emeritus in 1986, he remained professionally active throughout his retirement, publishing articles on both contemporary and historical mathematical topics. One solved an architectural puzzle associated with the construction of the Brunelleschi Dome in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. He was active in the Palo Alto Friends Meeting (Quakers) during his retirement, serving as treasurer for several years.

Publications

* * * *
Notes on Lie Algebras

Selected Chapters on Geometry (translation by Hans Samelson)

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Samelson, Hans 1916 births 2005 deaths 20th-century German mathematicians American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States ETH Zurich alumni Stanford University Department of Mathematics faculty University of Michigan faculty 20th-century American mathematicians Topologists Differential geometers

Career and personal life

See also

Publications

External links