Oskar Perron (7 May 1880 – 22 February 1975) was a German

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 was a professor at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

from 1914 to 1922 and at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

from 1922 to 1951. He made numerous contributions to differential equations and

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to ho ...

s, including the Perron method to solve the Dirichlet problem for

elliptic partial differential equation In mathematics, an elliptic partial differential equation is a type of partial differential equation (PDE). In mathematical modeling, elliptic PDEs are frequently used to model steady states, unlike parabolic PDE and hyperbolic PDE which gene ...

s. He wrote an encyclopedic book on

continued fraction A continued fraction is a mathematical expression that can be written as a fraction with a denominator that is a sum that contains another simple or continued fraction. Depending on whether this iteration terminates with a simple fraction or not, ...

s ''Die Lehre von den Kettenbrüchen''. He introduced ''Perron's paradox'' to illustrate the danger of assuming that the solution of an optimization problem exists: :''Let N be the largest positive integer. If N > 1, then N² > N, contradicting the definition of N. Hence N = 1''.

Works

* ''Über die Drehung eines starren Körpers um seinen Schwerpunkt bei Wirkung äußerer Kräfte'', Diss. München 1902 * ''Grundlagen für eine Theorie der Jacobischen Kettenbruchalgorithmus'', Habilitationsschrift Leipzig 1906 * ''Die Lehre von den Kettenbrüchen'', 2 vols., 1913, 3rd edn. Teubner Verlag 1954 (vol. 1 Elementare Kettenbrüche, vol. 2 analytische und funktionentheoretische Kettenbrüche) * ''Irrationalzahlen'', 1921, 2nd edn. 1939, 4th edn. de Gruyter, Berlin 1960 * ''Algebra I, II'', Sammlung Göschen 1927, 3rd edn, 1951 * with Evelyn Frank: * ''Nichteuklidische Elementargeometrie der Ebene'', Teubner, Stuttgart 1962

Sources

* Edmund Hlawka: ''Das Werk Perrons auf dem Gebiete der diophantischen Approximationen.'' Jahresbericht der DMV 80, 1978, S. 1–12 * Josef Heinhold: ''Oskar Perron'', Jahresbericht der DMV 90, 1988, S. 184–199 (in der DML Bielefeld

* Freddy Litten: ''Oskar Perron – Ein Beispiel von Zivilcourage im Dritten Reich'', Mitteilungen der DMV Heft 3, 1994, S. 11–12; erweitert in: ''Frankenthal einst und jetzt'', 1995, S. 26–28 (auf der Homepage von Litten

* Leon Bernstein: ''The modified algorithm of Jacobi-Perron.'' Memoirs of the AMS 67, Providence, 1966 * Leon Bernstein: ''The Jacobi-Perron algorithm - its theory and application.'' Lecture Notes Math. 207, Springer-Verlag, 1971

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External links

* * * * Gabriele Dörflinger
Oskar Perron
In
Historia Mathematica Heidelbergensis
1880 births 1975 deaths 20th-century German mathematicians Academic staff of Heidelberg University Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Partial differential equation theorists Linear algebraists Presidents of the German Mathematical Society {{Germany-mathematician-stub

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