Norbert Schappacher (born 8 October 1950 in

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

) is a German mathematician and historian of mathematics. He was an Invited Speaker at the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

in 2010 in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Education and career

After secondary education at Essen's ''Burggymnasium'', Schappacher studied from 1969 to 1971 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 ...

, where he was taught by (among others) Günter Harder and

Friedrich Hirzebruch Friedrich Ernst Peter Hirzebruch ForMemRS (17 October 1927 – 27 May 2012) was a German mathematician, working in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and a leading figure in his generation. He has been described as ...

. Schappacher obtained his ''Vordiplom'' in 1971 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 ...

, where he studied from 1971 to 1974 and was taught by (among others)

Hans Grauert Hans Grauert (8 February 1930 in Haren, Emsland, Germany – 4 September 2011) was a German mathematician. He is known for major works on several complex variables, complex manifolds and the application of sheaf theory in this area, which i ...

, Ulrich Stuhler, and Martin Kneser. For the academic year 1974–1975, Schappacher studied as an exchange student at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, where his teachers included Tsit Yuen Lam and

Robin Hartshorne __NOTOC__ Robin Cope Hartshorne ( ; born March 15, 1938) is an American mathematician who is known for his work in algebraic geometry. Career Hartshorne was a Putnam Fellow in Fall 1958 while he was an undergraduate at Harvard University (under ...

. At the University of Göttingen, Schappacher received his ''

Diplom A ''Diplom'' (, from ) is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

'' in 1975 and from 1977 to 1986 held the position of assistant at the Göttingen Mathematical Institute. There in 1978 he received his doctorate with advisor Martin Kneser and thesis ''Eine diophantische Invariante von Singularitäten über nichtarchimedischen Körpern'' (A diophantine invariant of singularities over non-Archimedean fields). He was from 1979 to 1981 at

Paris-Sud University Paris-Sud University (), also known as the University of Paris — XI (or as the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, ...

(University of Paris XI) in

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

with John H. Coates and for the academic year 1983–1984 at the

Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics (, MPIM) is a research institute located in Bonn, Germany. It is named in honor of the German physicist Max Planck and forms part of the Max Planck Society (''Max-Planck-Gesellschaft''), an association of ...

(MPI) in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

with Günter Harder. Schappacher in 1985 was an assistant professor (''Professeur associé'') at Paris-Sud University and habilitated in 1986 at the University of Göttingen with thesis ''Periods of Hecke operators''. He was in 1986 at the

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califor ...

(MSRI) in Berkeley, then worked in 1987 as an assistant professor in Orsay and was from 1987 to 1991 a Heisenberg fellow at the MPI in Bonn. He was at the

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

for five months in 1990. Schappacher is since 1991 a professor at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...

. From 2002 to 2004 he was a visiting professor at

TU Darmstadt Tu or TU may refer to: Language * Tu language * Tu (cuneiform), a cuneiform sign * ''tu'' or ''tú'' the 2nd-person singular subject pronoun in many languages; see personal pronoun * T–V distinction (from the Latin pronouns ''tu'' and ''vos'') ...

and returned in 2004 to the University of Strasbourg. He has held visiting positions at several academic institutions, including the

Isaac Newton Institute The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute for mathematics and its applications at the University of Cambridge. It is named after one of the university's most illustrious figures, the mathematician ...

(for 2 months in 1997),

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a leading research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has a centres in ...

(for 2 months in 2000–2001), and the

Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen A German Akademie is a school or college, trade school or another educational institution. The word Akademie (unlike the words Gymnasium or Universität) is not protected by law, and any school or college may choose to call itself Akademie. A Som ...

(as Gauss-Professor in summer 2007). In 2011–2012 he was a Fellow of ''Lichtenberg-Kolleg'', Göttingen. Schappacher's research is primarily on

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

arithmetic geometry In mathematics, arithmetic geometry is roughly the application of techniques from algebraic geometry to problems in number theory. Arithmetic geometry is centered around Diophantine geometry, the study of rational points of algebraic varieties. ...

, and the history of mathematics. He has done research on the history of mathematics in Germany during the era of National Socialism (including

Edmund Landau Edmund Georg Hermann Landau (14 February 1877 – 19 February 1938) was a German mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and complex analysis. Biography Edmund Landau was born to a Jewish family in Berlin. His father was Leopo ...

Oswald Teichmüller Paul Julius Oswald Teichmüller (; 18 June 1913 – 11 September 1943) was a German mathematician. He made contributions to complex analysis, including the introduction of quasiconformal mappings and differential geometric methods into the study ...

and the Mathematical Institute in Göttingen), as well as historical research on

Kurt Heegner Kurt Heegner (; 16 December 1893 – 2 February 1965) was a German private scholar from Berlin, who specialized in radio engineering and mathematics. He is famous for his mathematical discoveries in number theory and, in particular, the Stark–H ...

Bartel Leendert van der Waerden Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (; 2 February 1903 – 12 January 1996) was a Dutch mathematician and historian of mathematics. Biography Education and early career Van der Waerden learned advanced mathematics at the University of Amste ...

, Diophantus of Alexandria, and

Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...

. Since 2008 Schappacher is a member of the Euler Committee of the Swiss Academy of Sciences. He was from 2009 to 2016 editor-in-chief of the ''Revue d'histoire des mathématiques'' and is the managing editor of the ''

Elemente der Mathematik ''Elemente der Mathematik'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering mathematics. It is published by the European Mathematical Society Publishing House on behalf of the Swiss Mathematical Society. It was established in 1946 by Louis Loc ...

''. In 2011 he was elected a corresponding member of the

Selected publications

Articles

* with Günter Harder in: * with Martin Kneser: ''Fachverband – Institut – Staat. Streiflichter auf das Verhältnis von Mathematik zu Gesellschaft und Politik in Deutschland seit 1890 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus''. In: Gerd Fischer,

Winfried Scharlau Winfried Scharlau (12 August 1940, in Berlin – 26 November 2020) was a German mathematician. Biography Scharlau received his doctorate in 1967 from the University of Bonn. His doctoral thesis ''Quadratische Formen und Galois-Cohomologie'' (Quad ...

, Willi Törnig (eds.): ''Ein Jahrhundert Mathematik 1890-1990. Festschrift zum Jubiläum der DMV.'' Vieweg, Braunschweig 1990, (Dokumente zur Geschichte der Mathematik 6), pp. 1–82 *''On the history of Hilbert's twelfth problem,'' in: Michele Audin (ed.), Matériaux pour l'histoire des mathématiques au XXe siècle Actes du colloque à la mémoire de Jean Dieudonné (Nice 1996), SMF 1998 *
Das Mathematische Institut der Universität Göttingen 1929–1950
' in Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegener (eds.): ''Die Universität Göttingen unter dem Nationalsozialismus'' (2nd expanded edition), K. G. Saur, München 1998, pp. 523–551 (More detailed typescript from 1983 in a new version from April 200
online
* * "Seventy years ago: The Bourbaki Congress at El Escorial and other mathematical (non) events of 1936." I
''The Mathematical Intelligencer, Special issue International Congress of Mathematicians Madrid August''
pp. 8–15. 2006. *

Books

* ''Periods of Hecke characters'', Springer-Verlag, Berlin 1988, (Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1301)
2006 reprint
* as editor, with

Michael Rapoport Michael Rapoport (born 2 October 1948) is an Austrian mathematician. Career Rapoport received his PhD from Paris-Sud 11 University in 1976, under the supervision of Pierre Deligne. He held a chair for arithmetic algebraic geometry at the Uni ...

and Peter Schneider: ''Beilinson’s conjectures on special values of L-functions'', Academic Press, Boston 1988, (Oberwolfach-Tagung; Perspectives in Mathematics 4)
2014 reprint
* as editor, with Alexander Reznikov: ''Regulators in analysis, geometry and number theory'', Birkhäuser, Basel 2000, (Progress in Mathematics 171)
2012 reprint
* as editor, with

Catherine Goldstein : Catherine Goldstein (born July 5, 1958 in Paris) is a French number theorist and historian of mathematics who works as a director of research at the (IMJ). She was president of L'association femmes et mathématiques in 1991. Education and car ...

Joachim Schwermer Joachim Schwermer (26 May 1950, Kulmbach) is a German mathematician, specializing in number theory. Education Schwermer received his ''Abitur'' in 1969 at Aloisiuskolleg in Bad Godesberg and then studied mathematics at the University of Bonn. Af ...

''The shaping of arithmetic after C. F. Gauss’s Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.''
Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2007, * as editor, with Heinrich Begehr, Helmut Koch, Jürg Kramer, and Ernst-Jochen Thiele:

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schappacher, Norbert 20th-century German mathematicians 21st-century German mathematicians German historians of mathematics University of Göttingen alumni Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg 1950 births Living people