Mayer studied at the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, completing his studies in the autumn of 1857.
College/University
Gallery of Christian Mayer
Ulitsa Aleksandra Nevskogo, 14, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, 236041
Following the award of his doctorate, Mayer went to Königsberg in 1862 where he worked under Friedrich Julius Richelot for his habilitation thesis Beiträge zur Theorie der Maxima und Minima einfacher Integrale.
Gallery of Christian Mayer
69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Mayer began his university education but, breaking with the family tradition of becoming a banker, he chose to study mathematics and natural sciences (particularly chemistry and mineralogy) rather than commercial studies. As was the custom of German students at this time, he studied at a number of different universities during his education. He spent his first two semesters at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, He completed his doctorate at Heidelberg with the degree being awarded on 14 December 1861.
Gallery of Christian Mayer
Wilhelmsplatz 1, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
Mayer studied under Moritz Abraham Stern at Göttingen for a year beginning in autumn 1858. In fact, Stern had just been appointed as a full professor at Göttingen, succeeding Gauss.
Gallery of Christian Mayer
Augustusplatz 10, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
Mayer returned to his home town of Leipzig and submitted the thesis to its university and gained the right to teach at universities in December 1866.
Career
Gallery of Christian Mayer
1878
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer in 1878.
Gallery of Christian Mayer
1885
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer in the 1880s.
Achievements
Membership
Berlin Academy of Sciences
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer was a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer was a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Göttingen Academy of Sciences
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer was a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.
Turin Academy of Sciences
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer was a member of the Turin Academy of Sciences.
Mayer began his university education but, breaking with the family tradition of becoming a banker, he chose to study mathematics and natural sciences (particularly chemistry and mineralogy) rather than commercial studies. As was the custom of German students at this time, he studied at a number of different universities during his education. He spent his first two semesters at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, He completed his doctorate at Heidelberg with the degree being awarded on 14 December 1861.
Mayer studied under Moritz Abraham Stern at Göttingen for a year beginning in autumn 1858. In fact, Stern had just been appointed as a full professor at Göttingen, succeeding Gauss.
Ulitsa Aleksandra Nevskogo, 14, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, 236041
Following the award of his doctorate, Mayer went to Königsberg in 1862 where he worked under Friedrich Julius Richelot for his habilitation thesis Beiträge zur Theorie der Maxima und Minima einfacher Integrale.
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer was a German mathematician and educator. He worked on differential equations, the calculus of variations and mechanics.
Background
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer was born on February 15, 1839, in Leipzig, Kingdom of Prussia (now Sachsen, Germany). His father, Christian Adolph Mayer, was a merchant, banker and financial advisor from Leipzig with a prosperous business so that the family was well off. Mayer's family had lived in Leipzig for several generations having emigrated from St Gallen in the seventeenth century. Christian Adolph Mayer was a family name given to the eldest son of each generation, so Adolph Mayer's paternal grandfather was also named Christian Adolph Mayer and was also a banker in Leipzig. Christian Mayer's mother was Agnes Frege, the daughter of Christian Gottlob Frege, a banker, and financial advisor, and Johanna Henriette Rode.
Education
Mayer studied at the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, completing his studies in the autumn of 1857. He then began his university education but, breaking with the family tradition of becoming a banker, he chose to study mathematics and natural sciences (particularly chemistry and mineralogy) rather than commercial studies.
As was the custom of German students at this time, Mayer studied at a number of different universities during his education. He spent his first two semesters at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, then he studied under Moritz Abraham Stern at Göttingen for a year beginning in autumn 1858. In fact, Stern had just been appointed as a full professor at Göttingen, succeeding Gauss. After the year, Mayer returned to the University of Heidelberg where he was fascinated by the lectures of Otto Hesse, and, after spending one semester at Leipzig, he completed his doctorate at Heidelberg with the degree being awarded on 14 December 1861.
Following the award of his doctorate, Mayer went to Königsberg in 1862 where he worked under Friedrich Julius Richelot for his habilitation thesis Beiträge zur Theorie der Maxima und Minima einfacher Integrale. He returned to his home town of Leipzig and submitted the thesis to its university and gained the right to teach at universities in December 1866.
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer began teaching at Leipzig University in 1867 giving two courses in that year, Analytic Mechanics and the Calculus of variations, as well as teaching a Mathematical Exercises class. In the following years, he taught Differential and Integral Calculus, Theory of Definite Integrals, Some chapters from mechanics and the calculus of variations, Higher Algebra, Differential Equation of Mechanics and the Calculus of Variations, Analytic Geometry, and many more courses of a similar type. In fact, his teaching was considered to be of the very highest quality.
Mayer taught at Leipzig for the rest of his life, as a privatdozent from 1867 to 1871, becoming an extraordinary professor of mathematics in 1871. He was promoted to an honorary ordinary professorship in 1881 and a full ordinary professorship in 1890. He was co-director of the Mathematics Seminar at Leipzig from 1882. While he was still a privatdozent, the Franco-Prussian war took place in 1870. Mayer volunteered to serve his country and was a nurse for the duration of the conflict. Poor health caused him to suspend his teaching activities early in 1908.
Mayer worked on differential equations, the calculus of variations and mechanics. The papers he wrote during his years as a privatdozent were: Über die Kriterien des Maximums und Minimums einfacher Integrale (1868), Der Satz der Variationsrechnung, welcher dem mechanischen Prinzips der kleinsten Wirkung entspricht (1870), Über die Jacobi-Hamiltonache Integrationsmethode der partiellen Differentialgleichungen erster Ordnung (1871), Über die Integration simultaner partieller Differentialgleichungen der ersten Ordnung mit derselben unbekannten Funktion (1871), and Unbeschränkt integrable Systeme von linearen totalen Differentialgleichungen und die simultane Integration linearer partieller Differentialgleichungen (1871).
Mayer emphasized the principle of least action in all his work which followed the path of Lagrange and Jacobi. His work on the integration of partial differential equation and a search to determine maxima and minima using variational methods brought him close to the investigations which Lie was carrying out around the same time. He is also considered a forerunner of the modern control theory.
Membership
Berlin Academy of Sciences
,
Germany
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
,
Germany
Göttingen Academy of Sciences
,
Germany
Turin Academy of Sciences
,
Italy
Personality
Mayer had a home in Leipzig where he entertained friends, colleagues, and guests during the academic session. Each summer he would go to Abtnaundorf, about 4.5 km from the city center, where he had a comfortable cottage in the Old Park on an estate which had for generations belonged to his mother's side of the family. The walk from his summer cottage to the university took him around an hour but he always chose to make the journey on foot. The tribute paid to him at his funeral, attended by academic colleagues, senior faculty of the university, family and many friends, spoke of him as a noble and pure person who never sought fame or glory.
Physical Characteristics:
For many years Mayer was a very fit man, being a keen gymnast and swimmer in his younger days. As he grew older, his health was not so robust and he complained of hoarseness which he tried to cure by resting beside the lake. In the winter semester of 1907-1908, he had to cancel his lecture course on the Calculus of Variations because of stabbing pain in his chest, especially at night. It was probably pneumonia which was pulling him down and slowly exhausting his strength. He made a final effort to overcome his health problems, traveling with his wife and daughter to Bozen, then in Austria. There, in the mountain air, his health began to improve and he wrote some letters to his colleagues which were full of confidence that he would soon be fully fit again. Suddenly his health deteriorated rapidly and he died peacefully in Bozen.
Quotes from others about the person
"He worked hard for his students encouraging them to undertake further research and also encouraged them to study abroad. He was a most faithful friend to his colleagues, he worked tirelessly to promote Leipzig University and for him no trouble or personal sacrifice was too great." - Karl von der Mühll, Swiss physicist and mathematician
"Those who heard his lectures will remember them as eloquent, with ever word and every thought in its place; there was no word that could be safely lost."
"In the Mathematical Exercises, to which he devoted much time and energy, Mayer took great care that the tasks he set were actually solved using established or derived principles and not with ad hoc tricks which achieved the goal in a roundabout way." - Heinrich Liebmann, German mathematician and geometer
Interests
walking
Sport & Clubs
gymnastics, swimming
Connections
In 1872 Mayer married Margerete Weigel. They had four children, the eldest boy being named Christian Adolph Mayer in the family tradition and he also followed the family tradition by becoming a banker.