Hans Heinrich Wilhelm Magnus, known as Wilhelm Magnus (5 February 1907 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

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 ...

– 15 October 1990 in

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle ( ; in ) is a Political subdivisions of New York State#City, city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately from Midtow ...

), was a German-American

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 ...

. He made important contributions in

combinatorial group theory In mathematics, combinatorial group theory is the theory of free groups, and the concept of a presentation of a group by generators and relations. It is much used in geometric topology, the fundamental group of a simplicial complex having in a na ...

Lie algebra 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 ident ...

mathematical physics Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the de ...

elliptic functions In the mathematical field of complex analysis, elliptic functions are special kinds of meromorphic functions, that satisfy two periodicity conditions. They are named elliptic functions because they come from elliptic integrals. Those integrals are ...

, and the study of

tessellation A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety ...

Biography

In 1931, Magnus received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt in

. His thesis, written under the direction of

Max Dehn Max Wilhelm Dehn (November 13, 1878 – June 27, 1952) was a German mathematician most famous for his work in geometry, topology and geometric group theory. Dehn's early life and career took place in Germany. However, he was forced to retire in 1 ...

, was entitled ''Über unendlich diskontinuierliche Gruppen von einer definierenden Relation (der Freiheitssatz)''. Magnus was a faculty member in Frankfurt from 1933 until 1938. He refused to join the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

and, as a consequence, was not allowed to hold an academic post during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In 1947, he became a professor at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

. In 1948, he emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to collaborate on the

Bateman Manuscript Project The Bateman Manuscript Project was a major effort at collation and encyclopedic compilation of the mathematical theory of special functions. It resulted in the eventual publication of five important reference volumes, under the editorship of Arth ...

as a co-editor while a visiting professor at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

. In 1950, he was appointed professor at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU). Founded in 1935, it is named after Richard Courant, one of the founders of the Courant Institute ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. He stayed there until 1973, when he moved to the

Polytechnic Institute of New York The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United St ...

, before retiring in 1978. His doctoral students include

Joan Birman Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman (born May 30, 1927, in New York CityLarry Riddle., ''Biographies of Women Mathematicians'', at Agnes Scott College) is an American mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to th ...

, Martin Greendlinger, Edna Grossman, Herbert Keller,

Seymour Lipschutz Seymour Saul Lipschutz (born 1931 died March 2018) was an author of technical books on pure mathematics and probability, including a collection of Schaum's Outlines. Lipschutz received his Ph.D. in 1960 from New York University's Courant Institut ...

, and Kathryn F. Kuiken.

Selected works

* with Gilbert Baumslag and Bruce Chandler, eds.: ''Wilhelm Magnus, Collected Papers.'' Springer-Verlag 1984. * ''Noneuclidean tessellations and their groups.'' Academic Press 1974. * with Bruce Chandler: ''The History of Combinatorial Group Theory. A Case Study in the History of Ideas.'' Springer 1982. * Wilhelm Magnus, Abraham Karrass, Donald Solitar, ''Combinatorial group theory. Presentations of groups in terms of generators and relations'', Reprint of the 1976 second edition, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, NY, 2004. * Wilhelm Magnus, Stanley Winkler, ''Hill's equation'', Reprint of the 1979 second edition, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, NY, 2004. . *with Israel Grossman: ''Groups and their Graphs.''

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

(New Mathematical Library 14) 1965. * (The

scan
* Wilhelm Magnus, , and Raz Pal Soni, ''Formulas and Theorems for the Special Functions of Mathematical Physics''. Springer-Verlag New York Inc., New York, 1966. * with Fritz Oberhettinger: ''Formeln und Sätze für die speziellen Funktionen der mathematischen Physik.'' Springer 1943; 2nd edition, 1948; 3rd edition in English, ''Formulas and theorems for the functions of mathematical physics'', Chelsea Pub. Co. 1966. * with Fritz Oberhettinger: ''Anwendungen der elliptischen Funktionen in Physik und Technik.'' Springer 1949.

References

External links

* * 1907 births 1990 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century German mathematicians Group theorists Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Goethe University Frankfurt alumni Emigrants from Allied-occupied Germany to the United States {{US-mathematician-stub

Biography

See also

Selected works

References

Further reading

External links