
Jacob Lüroth (18 February 1844,
Mannheim
Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
– 14 September 1910,
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
) was a German mathematician who proved
Lüroth's theorem In mathematics, Lüroth's theorem asserts that every field that lies between a field ''K'' and the rational function field ''K''(''X'') must be generated as an extension of ''K'' by a single element of ''K''(''X''). This result is named after Jaco ...
and introduced
Lüroth quartic
In mathematics, a Lüroth quartic is a nonsingular quartic plane curve containing the 10 vertices of a complete pentalateral. They were introduced by . showed that the Lüroth quartics form an open subset of a degree 54 hypersurface
In geometry, ...
s. His name is sometimes written Lueroth, following the common
printing convention for umlauted characters. He began his studies in
astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
at 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 ...
, but switched to mathematics when his poor eyesight made taking astronomical observations impossible. He received his doctorate in 1865 from
Heidelberg University
Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...
, for a thesis on
Pascal's theorem
In projective geometry, Pascal's theorem (also known as the ''hexagrammum mysticum theorem'', Latin for mystical hexagram) states that if six arbitrary points are chosen on a conic (which may be an ellipse, parabola or hyperbola in an appropriat ...
.
From 1868 he was at the
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; ) is both a German public research university in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, and a research center of the Helmholtz Association.
KIT was created in 2009 when the University of Karlsruhe (), founde ...
, where he became a professor in 1869, and from 1880 he was a professor at the
Technical University of Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences.
Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...
, succeeding
Felix Klein
Felix Christian Klein (; ; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and Mathematics education, mathematics educator, known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and the associations betwe ...
. In 1883, he became a professor at the
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...
, where he remained until his retirement.
Following up on
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; ; ; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist, who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science. He was director of the Göttingen Observatory and ...
's work on
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...
, Lüroth discovered the
''t''-distribution usually credited to
William Sealy Gosset
William Sealy Gosset (13 June 1876 – 16 October 1937) was an English statistician, chemist and brewer who worked for Guinness. In statistics, he pioneered small sample experimental design. Gosset published under the pen name Student and develo ...
. In modern terms, the calculation that led Lüroth to the ''t''-distribution was the computation of a
Bayesian interval.
In honor of his mathematical achievements, Lüroth was elected to the
Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities () is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject. The general goal of th ...
in 1882, to the
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (), in short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on 1 January 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academi ...
the following year, and in 1909 to the
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences
The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (German: ''Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften''), established in 1909 in Heidelberg, Germany, is an assembly of scholars and scientists in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The acade ...
.
See also
*
Distributive lattice
In mathematics, a distributive lattice is a lattice (order), lattice in which the operations of join and meet distributivity, distribute over each other. The prototypical examples of such structures are collections of sets for which the lattice o ...
*
Netto's theorem
In mathematical analysis, Netto's theorem states that continuous bijections of smooth manifolds preserve dimension. That is, there does not exist a continuous bijection between two smooth manifolds of different dimension. It is named after Eugen ...
*
Lüroth quartic
In mathematics, a Lüroth quartic is a nonsingular quartic plane curve containing the 10 vertices of a complete pentalateral. They were introduced by . showed that the Lüroth quartics form an open subset of a degree 54 hypersurface
In geometry, ...
*
Lüroth's theorem In mathematics, Lüroth's theorem asserts that every field that lies between a field ''K'' and the rational function field ''K''(''X'') must be generated as an extension of ''K'' by a single element of ''K''(''X''). This result is named after Jaco ...
References
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19th-century German mathematicians
Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich
1844 births
1910 deaths
20th-century German mathematicians
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