Summary
Stefan Cohn-Vossen (28 May 1902 – 25 June 1936) was a mathematician, who was responsible for Cohn-Vossen's inequality and the Cohn-Vossen transformation is also named after him.[1] He proved the first version of the splitting theorem.
Stefan Cohn-Vossen | |
|---|---|
 in Moscow, probably 1936 | |
| Born | 28 May 1902 |
| Died | 25 June 1936 (aged 34) |
| Alma mater | Wrocław University |
| Known for | Cohn-Vossen's inequality |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Thesis | Singuläre Punkte reeller, schlichter Kurvenscharen, deren Differentialgleichung gegeben ist (1924) |
| Doctoral advisor | Adolf Kneser |
He was also known for his collaboration with David Hilbert on the 1932 book Anschauliche Geometrie, translated into English as Geometry and the Imagination.[2]
He was born in Breslau (then a city in the Kingdom of Prussia; now Wrocław in Poland). He wrote a 1924 doctoral dissertation at the University of Breslau (now the University of Wrocław) under the supervision of Adolf Kneser.[3] He became a professor at the University of Cologne in 1930.
He was barred from lecturing in 1933 under Nazi racial legislation, because he was Jewish.[4] In 1934 he emigrated to the USSR, with some help from Herman Müntz.[5] While there, he taught at Leningrad University. He died in Moscow from pneumonia.[6]
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Voitsekhovskii, M.I. (2001) [1994], "Cohn-Vossen transformation", Encyclopedia of Mathematics, EMS Press
- ^ Hilbert, David; Cohn-Vossen, Stephan (1952). Geometry and the Imagination (2nd ed.). Chelsea. ISBN 0-8284-1087-9.
- ^ Stefan Cohn-Vossen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard (2009), Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact, Princeton University Press, pp. 132, 133, 346, 370, 373, 399, ISBN 9780691140414.
- ^ Siegmund-Schultze 2009 (p.133) quotes from a 1937 letter by Müntz: "The appointments of Cohn-Vossen, Walfisz, Pollaczek (the latter was not allowed to slip in again) were immediately influenced by myself, the ones for Plessner and Bergmann indirectly."
- ^ Cohn-Vossen's Obituary (in Russian)
External links edit
- Anschauliche Geometrie at Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum
- Cohn-Vossen transformation at Encyclopedia of Mathematics