Background
Lazarus Fuchs was born on March 5, 1833, in Mosina, Poland. He was the son of Rafael Fuchs and his wife Caecilie Katz.
Germany
Lazarus Fuchs
Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Fuchs received the doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1858.
educator mathematician scientist
Lazarus Fuchs was born on March 5, 1833, in Mosina, Poland. He was the son of Rafael Fuchs and his wife Caecilie Katz.
By the time Fuchs was a student at the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, his unusual aptitude in mathematics had awakened a corresponding interest in the discipline. At the University of Berlin he studied with Ernst Eduard Kummer and Karl Weierstrass, and it was the latter who introduced him to function theory, an area that was to play an important role in his own researches. Fuchs received the doctorate from Berlin in 1858.
After graduating Fuchs taught first at a Gymnasium and later at the Friedrich Werderschen Trade School. It was during this period that he did outstanding work on homogeneous linear differential equations with variable coefficients which was published in the important 40-page paper Zur Theorie der linearen Differentialgleichungen mit veränderlichen Coefficienten, which appeared in Crelle's Journal in 1866. In 1865 he went to the University of Berlin as a Privatdozent, and there he began the study of regular singular points. In 1866 he became an extraordinary professor at the university. From 1867 to 1869 he was professor of mathematics at the Artillery and Engineering School.
Fuchs took up the professorship in Greifswald on 3 February 1869, the position becoming vacant since Leo Königsberger, who had taught at Greifswald for five years, had been appointed to a chair of mathematics at Heidelberg. After spending five years in Greifswald, Fuchs moved again, this time to Göttingen where he took up an appointment as an ordinary professor on 23 January 1874. Then in the following year he went to Heidelberg and taught there for nine years. In many ways these years were the most enjoyable period of his life. He loved the natural environment around the city, something that was important to Fuchs who had deep feelings for nature. Also in Heidelberg he had a particularly good relationship with his many outstanding doctoral students, and he got on extremely well with the other members of staff in many different faculties of the university. In fact during nine years at Heidelberg he supervised the doctoral studies of at least eight students who went on to become professors of mathematics. In the summer semester of 1884 he returned to Berlin to fill Kummer's chair when his old teacher retired. Fuchs held this post for the rest of his life. He also undertook important editorial duties in the final ten years of his life when he was the editor of Crelle's journal, the Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik.
(Volume 1)
1904(Volume 2)
1905(Volume 3)
1906Before the award of his doctorate, Fuchs began to worry about whether he should convert from Judaism to Christianity. He knew that if he remained a follower of the Jewish faith he would suffer discrimination and his career prospects would be very limited. In 1860, Fuchs converted to Evangelical-Lutheran Christianity.
Fuchs was a member of Göttingen Academy of Sciences, Prussian Academy of Sciences, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
In 1868 Fuchs married Marie Anders. They had four sons and two daughters, including Clara Fuchs and Richard Fuchs, who became a mathematician.