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Walter Benz (May 2, 1931 Lahnstein – January 13, 2017
Personal web site
Oberwolfach Photo Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benz, Walter 1931 births 2017 deaths 20th-century German mathematicians German geometers Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz alumni Academic staff of the University of Waterloo Academic staff of the University of Hamburg Academic staff of Ruhr University Bochum People from Rhein-Lahn-Kreis
Walter Benz (May 2, 1931 Lahnstein – January 13, 2017 Ratzeburg
Ratzeburg (; Low German: ''Ratzborg'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is surrounded by Ratzeburger See, four lakes—the resulting isthmuses between the lakes form the access lanes to the town. Ratzeburg is the capital of the distri ...
) 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 ...
, an expert in geometry
Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...
.
Benz studied at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and received his doctoral degree
A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in 1954, with Robert Furch as his advisor.
After a position at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, he served as a professor at Ruhr University Bochum
The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began ...
, University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...
, and University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...
. Benz was honoured with the degree of a Dr. h.c.
Based on his book ''Vorlesungen über Geometrie der Algebren'' (Springer
Springer or springers may refer to:
Publishers
* Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag.
** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...
1973), certain geometric objects are called Benz planes.
Inner product space
In mathematics, an inner product space (or, rarely, a Hausdorff pre-Hilbert space) is a real vector space or a complex vector space with an operation called an inner product. The inner product of two vectors in the space is a scalar, ofte ...
s over the real number
In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one- dimensional quantity such as a duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every re ...
s provide the basis of a 2007 book by Benz: ''Classical Geometries in Modern Contexts''.W. Benz (2007) ''Classical Geometries in Modern Contexts: Geometry of Real Inner Product Spaces'', Birkhäuser
Birkhäuser was a Swiss publisher founded in 1879 by Emil Birkhäuser. It was acquired by Springer Science+Business Media in 1985. Today it is an imprint used by two companies in unrelated fields:
* Springer continues to publish science (parti ...
,
See also
*List of University of Waterloo people
The University of Waterloo, located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is a comprehensive public university that was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles. It has grown into an institution of more than 42,000 students, faculty, and st ...
References
* Uta Hartmann (2009) "Walter Benz — 'Die Mathematik war mein Leben, ist mein Leben' ", ''Journal of Geometry'' 93:83–115.External links
Personal web site
Oberwolfach Photo Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benz, Walter 1931 births 2017 deaths 20th-century German mathematicians German geometers Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz alumni Academic staff of the University of Waterloo Academic staff of the University of Hamburg Academic staff of Ruhr University Bochum People from Rhein-Lahn-Kreis