Mittag-Leffler entered Uppsala University in 1865 and obtained the doctorate in 1872. He also studied in Paris under Charles Hermite and in Berlin under Karl Weierstrass.
Career
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Photo of Henri Poincaré, Gösta Mittag-Leffler, Carl David Tolmé Runge, and Edmund Landau.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Gallery of Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Portrait photo of Gösta Mittag-Leffler.
Achievements
Membership
Royal Society
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Royal Society.
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
French Academy of Sciences
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Lincean Academy
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Lincean Academy.
Russian Academy of Sciences
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL.
Royal Physiographic Society
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Royal Physiographic Society.
Mittag-Leffler entered Uppsala University in 1865 and obtained the doctorate in 1872. He also studied in Paris under Charles Hermite and in Berlin under Karl Weierstrass.
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a Swedish mathematician. He founded the international mathematical journal Acta Mathematica and his contributions to mathematical research helped advance the Scandinavian school of mathematics.
Background
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was born on March 16, 1846, in Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, Sweden to the family of John Olaf Leffler and Gustava Wilhelmina Mittag. Mittag-Leffler's father was a school teacher who became a headmaster of a high school in Stockholm. He also served a spell as a member of parliament. Gösta was the eldest of the family and he was born in the schoolhouse at the school where his father taught. After a while, his parents bought a house of their own and in this new home Gösta's sister and two brothers were born; none of them would follow him in adding Mittag to their names. Both sides of the family were of German origin but had lived for several generations in Sweden. Gösta's grandfather on his father's side was a sailmaker who, like his son would do, served for a time as a member of parliament. Gösta's grandfather on his mother's side was a dean in the church, living in a country area of Sweden. As a young boy, Mittag-Leffler spent each summer holiday with his mother's parents and he had a great affection for his mother's family. The atmosphere at home was intellectually stimulating, and Mittag-Leffler’s aptitude for mathematics was recognized and encouraged at an early age.
Education
Mittag-Leffler entered Uppsala University in 1865 and obtained the doctorate in 1872. He also studied in Paris under Charles Hermite and in Berlin under Karl Weierstrass.
After graduation, Gösta Mittag-Leffler remained at the university as a lecturer for a year, but in 1873 left on a traveling scholarship for Paris, Göttingen, and Berlin. On the advice of Hermite, whom he met in Paris, he went to study under Weierstrass in Berlin. Weierstrass exerted a decisive influence on his subsequent development.
In 1877 Mittag-Leffler wrote his Habilitationsschrift on the theory of elliptic function and, in consequence, was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Helsinki. In 1881 he left Helsinki for Stockholm, where he became professor of mathematics at the newly established Högskola (later the University of Stockholm). He twice served as rector. Among his colleagues, there were Sonya Kovalewsky and E. Phragmén. Mittag-Leffler was an excellent lecturer. Among his students were I. O. Bendixson, Helge von Koch, and E. I. Fredholm.
Mittag-Leffler was not among the mathematical giants of his time, but he did contribute several methods and results that have found a lasting place in the mathematical literature. His most important contributions clearly reflect Weierstrass’s influence. Thus, where Weierstrass had given formulas for the representation of entire functions and of elliptic functions, Mittag-Leffler set himself the task of finding representation for an arbitrary meromorphic function f(z) which would display its behavior at its poles. The answer is of classical simplicity. Let {zn} be the set of poles of f(z) so that {Zn} is either finite or is infinite and possesses a limit point at infinity. In the former case, the answer is trivial since f(z) differs from an entire function only by the sum of its principal parts, ∑hn(z-zn). In the latter case, this sum is infinite and may diverge. Convergence is reestablished by adding to the individual terms of the sums certainly suitable polynomials.
A generalization of this result, also due to Mittag-Leffler, is concerned with the case where the set {zn} while still consisting of isolated points may have limit points also in the finite plane. Another field that was pioneered by Mittag-Leffler is that of the representation of an analytic function f(z) beyond the circle of convergence of its power series round a given point. Taking this point, without loss of generality, as the origin, one defines the (principal) Mittag-Leffler star of the function with respect to the origin as the union of the straight segments extending from the origin to the first singularity of the function in that direction (or to infinity). Mittag-Leffler developed analytic expressions that represent f(z) in the entire Mittag-Leffler star. The later evolutions of this subject led to its being subsumed under the heading of the theory of summability, where certain infinite matrices are now known as Mittag-Leffler matrices.
Mittag-Leffler was a prolific writer, and the list of his publications includes 119 items. But his importance as a research worker is overshadowed by his prominence as an organizer in many spheres of scientific activity. He was the founder and, for many years, the chief editor of the highly influential Acta Mathematica, to which he attracted important contributions by men such as E. Borel, G. Cantor, J. Hadamard, D. Hilbert, J. Jensen, V. Volterra, H. Weber, and above all H. Poincaré.
Mittag-Leffler’s relationship with Cantor is of particular interest. Mittag-Leffler himself said of his work on meromorphic functions and of its generalizations that it had been his endeavor to subsume Weierstrass’ and Cantor’s approaches to analysis under a single point of view. And Cantor regarded Mittag-Leffler as one of his most influential friends and supporters in a hostile world.
Mittag-Leffler also wrote a moving account of the relationship between Weierstrass and Sonya Kovalewsky.
There is no definite information on Mittag-Leffler's religious views.
Politics
Previously to 1905 Mittag-Leffler had been critical of scientists who got involved in political matters, but gradually his own desire to take part had grown. He saw how the political issues were piling up, especially with regard to Norway. He didn’t think there were any politicians who were capable of dealing with the problems, and he again stated that “mediocrity” was Sweden’s foremost personality trait. He thought that one reason for this “domination of mediocrity” could be found in the way in which Swedish politicians were elected – to both the First Chamber and Second Chamber of the Riksdag. Consequently, changing the Swedish electoral system became one of the tasks in which he wanted to participate.
For Mittag-Leffler, it became the start of much more public political activity. At one point in the negotiations with Norway, he was actually contacted by the Swedish prime minister, who asked him to go to the Norwegian capital to get a feel for the mood there and then report back. Mittag-Leffler was a serious candidate for the First Chamber of the Riksdag, representing Västerbotten County.
Views
Mittag-Leffler was a convinced advocate of women's rights and was instrumental in making Sofia Kovalevskaya a full professor of mathematics in Stockholm, as the first woman anywhere in the world to hold that position. As a member of the Nobel Prize Committee in 1903, he was responsible for inducing the committee to award the prize for Physics jointly to Marie and Pierre Curie, instead of just Pierre. Mittag-Leffler was very conscious of the importance of maintaining a record of the contemporary history of mathematics for posterity, and the pages of Acta Mathematica contains reprints of many exchanges of letters between notable mathematicians of the period.
Membership
Gösta Mittag-Leffler was a member of the Royal Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Lincean Academy, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL, the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala, the Royal Physiographic Society, and others.
Royal Society
,
United Kingdom
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
,
Sweden
French Academy of Sciences
,
French
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
,
Hungary
Lincean Academy
,
Italy
Russian Academy of Sciences
,
Russia
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
,
Germany
Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL
,
Italy
Royal Physiographic Society
,
Sweden
Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala
,
Sweden
Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters
,
Finland
Personality
One of the most common -and unfounded - reasons as to why Alfred Nobel decided against a Nobel prize in math is that a woman he proposed to or his wife or his mistress rejected him because of or cheated him with a famous mathematician. Gosta Mittag-Leffler is often claimed to be the guilty party. There is no historical evidence to support the story.
Interests
Travelling, cycling
Connections
Gösta Mittag-Leffler married Signe af Lindfors in 1882. They had no children.