Lindemann received the doctorate from Erlangen in 1873, under the direction of F. Klein. His dissertation dealt with infinitely small movements of rigid bodies under general projective mensuration.
Lindemann received the doctorate from Erlangen in 1873, under the direction of F. Klein. His dissertation dealt with infinitely small movements of rigid bodies under general projective mensuration.
Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann was a German mathematician. He was the one who proved the transcendence of π (pi).
Background
Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann was born on April 12, 1852, in Hanover, Germany. His father, Ferdinand Lindemann, taught modern languages at a Gymnasium in Hanover. His mother, Emilie Crusius, was the daughter of the Gymnasium's headmaster.
Education
The Lindemanns later moved to Schwerin, where young Ferdinand attended school. He then studied in Göttingen, Erlangen, and Munich from 1870 to 1873. He was particularly influenced by Clebsch, who pioneered in invariant theory. Lindemann received the doctorate from Erlangen in 1873, under the direction of F. Klein. His dissertation dealt with infinitely small movements of rigid bodies under general projective mensuration. He then undertook a year-long academic journey to Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Paris, where he met Chasles, J. Berirand, C. Jordan, and Hermile.
In 1877 Lindemann qualified as a lecturer at Würzburg. In the same year, he became an assistant professor at the University of Freiburg. He became a full professor in 1879. In 1883 he accepted an appointment at Königsberg and finally, ten years later, one at Munich, where he was for many years also active on the administrative board of the university. He was elected an associate member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1894, and a full member in 1895.
In the years before World War I, he represented the Bavarian Academy in the meetings of the International Association of Academies of Sciences and Learned Societies.
Lindemann’s most outstanding original research is his 1882 work on the transcendence of π. This work definitively settled the ancient problem of the quadrature of the circle; it also redefined and reanimated fundamental questions in the mathematics of its own time.
Lindemann wrote papers on numerous branches of mathematics and on theoretical mechanics and spectrum theory. He also composed works in the history of mathematics, including a “Geschichte der Polyder und der Zahlzeiehen” (in Sitzungsberichte der mathematisch-physikalischen Klasse der Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften). Due to his works, he is considered one of the fathers of modern German educational system. He and his wife collaborated in translating and revising some of the works of Poincaré. Their edition of his La science et Phvpothése (as Wissenschaft und Hypothese) contributed greatly to the dissemination of Poincaré’s ideas in Germany.
Achievements
Politics
While working at the university, Lindeman actively opposed the teachings of National Socialism.
Views
Lindemann edited and revised Clebsch’s geometry lectures following the hater’s untimely death (as Vorlesungenüber Geometric).
In the nineteenth century mathematicians had realized that not every real number was necessarily the root of an algebraic equation and that therefore non-algebraic, so-called transcendental, numbers must exist. Liouville stated certain transcendental numbers, and in 1873 Hermite succeeded in demonstrating the transcendence of the base e of the natural logarithms. It was at this point that Lindemann turned his attention to the subject.
Interests
Toward the end of his life, Lindemann was driven by his love for the mountains.
Connections
On May 28, 1887, Lindemann married the actress Liesbeth Küssner, the daughter of a Königsberg teacher and school rector. The Lindemans had two children: a son Reinhart, who died in an accident in the Bavarian Alps, and a daughter Irmgard.