Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze - Böcker

The emigration of mathematicians from Europe during the Nazi era signaled an irrevocable and important historical shift for the international mathematics world. Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany is the first thoroughly documented account of this exodus. In this greatly expanded translation of the 1998 German edition, Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze describes the flight of more than 140 mathematicians, their reasons for leaving, the political and economic issues involved, the reception of these emigrants by various countries, and the emigrants' continuing contributions to mathematics. The influx of these brilliant thinkers to other nations profoundly reconfigured the mathematics world and vaulted the United States into a new leadership role in mathematics research. Based on archival sources that have never been examined before, the book discusses the preeminent emigrant mathematicians of the period, including Emmy Noether, John von Neumann, Hermann Weyl, and many others. The author explores the mechanisms of the expulsion of mathematicians from Germany, the emigrants' acculturation to their new host countries, and the fates of those mathematicians forced to stay behind.The book reveals the alienation and solidarity of the emigrants, and investigates the global development of mathematics as a consequence of their radical migration. An in-depth yet accessible look at mathematics both as a scientific enterprise and human endeavor, Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany provides a vivid picture of a critical chapter in the history of international science.

This book examines the historically unique conditions under which the International Congress of Mathematicians took place in Oslo in 1936. This Congress was the only one on this level to be held during the period of the Nazi regime in Germany (1933-1945) and after the wave of emigrations from it. Relying heavily on unpublished archival sources, the authors consider the different goals of the various participants in the Congress, most notably those of the Norwegian organizers, and the Nazi-led German delegation. They also investigate the reasons for the absence of the proposed Soviet and Italian delegations. In addition, aiming to shed light onto the mathematical dimension of the Congress, the authors provide overviews of the nineteen plenary presentations, as well as their planning and development. Biographical information about each of the plenary speakers rounds off the picture. The Oslo Congress, the first at which Fields Medals were awarded, is used as a lens through which the reader of this book can view the state of the art of mathematics in the mid-1930s.

Philanthropies funded by the Rockefeller family have been prominent in the social history of the twentieth century for their involvement in medicine and applied science. This book provides the first detailed study of their relatively brief but nonetheless influential foray into the field of mathematics. The careers of a generation of pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as S.Banach, B.L.van der Waerden and André Weil, were decisively affected by their becoming fellows of the Rockefeller-funded International Education Board in the 1920s. To help promote cooperation between physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds supported the erection of the new Mathematical Institute in Göttingen between 1926 and 1929, while the rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris by American philanthropy at about the same time. This account draws upon the documented evaluation processes behind these personal and institutional involvements of philanthropies. It not only sheds light on important events in the history of mathematics and physics of the 20th century but also analyzes the comparative developments of mathematics in Europe and the United States. Several of the documents are given in their entirety as significant witnesses to the gradual shift of the centre of world mathematics to the USA. This shift was strengthened by the Nazi purge of German and European mathematics after 1933 to which the Rockefeller Foundation reacted with emergency programs that subsequently contributed to the American war effort. The general historical and political background of the events discussed in this book is the mixture of competition and cooperation between the various European countries and the USA after World War I, and the consequences of the Nazi dictatorship after 1933. Ideological positions of both the philanthropists and mathematicians mattered heavily in that process. Cultural bias in the selection of fellowsand of disciplines supported, and the economic predominance of American philanthropy, led among other things to a restriction of the programs to Europe and America, to an uneven consideration of European candidates, and to preferences for Americans. Political self-isolation of the Soviet Union contributed to an increasing alienation of that important mathematical culture from Western mathematics. By focussing on a number of national cultures the investigation aims to represent a step toward a true inter-cultural comparison in mathematics.

Dieser Band enthält die Vorlesung Ausgewählte Kapitel aus der Funktionenlehre, die Karl Weierstraß im Sommersemester 1886 an der Berliner Universität gehalten hat. Sie war von ihm als Ergänzung seiner turnusmäßigen Vorlesung "Einleitung in die Theorie der analytischen Funktionen" konzipiert worden, und er hielt sie nur dieses eine Mal. Inhaltliche Schwerpunkte sind der Weierstraßsche Approximationssatz (mit Verallgemeinerungen auf unstetige Funktionen mittels des Cantorschen Begriffs des äußeren Inhalts einer beschränkten Punktmenge) und eine Einführung in die Theorie der Weierstraßschen "analytischen Gebilde". Der editierte Text, dem eine Autobiographie zugrunde liegt, enthält zahlreiche historische und methodologische Reflexionen. Die Vorlesung, der Kommentar des Herausgebers sowie die vier im Anhang enthaltenen fotomechanischen Nachdrucke von Arbeiten der Jahre 1857 bis 1880 verdeutlichen in besonderem Maße Weierstraß' Beitrag zur strengen Begründung der Analysis.

Als Schüler von KARL WEIERSTRASS zu Beginn unseres Jahrhunderts an der Ausgabe der Werke ihres Lehrers arbeiteten, ging es ihnen vor allem darum, den nachfolgenden Generationen den Schatz der unveröffentlichten Weierstraßschen Vorlesungen über elliptische und Abelsche Funktionen sowie über Variationsrechnung zu überliefern. Daß die Vorlesungen über allgemeine Funktionentheorie nicht in den Editionsplan auf­ genommen wurden, dürfte nicht zuletzt auch damit im Zusammenhang gestanden haben, daß deren Wirkung bereits allenthalben erkennbar und unwiderruflich war. Was den Zeitgenossen von WEIERSTRASS nicht erforderlich schien, will uns heute UD­ verzichtbar scheinen, wenn wir uns als Historiker und als Mathematiker der großen Gestalt von KARL WEIERSTRASS nähern wollen. Was aber den Zeitgenossen noch recht leicht gefallen wäre - eine möglichst exakte historische Dokumentation des Weierstraß­ schen Beitrages zur strengen Begründung der Analysis -, erfordert heute einen erhöhten Aufwand an geistiger Arbeit, bedingt einen kritischen Vergleich der nur bruchstückhaft auf uns gekommenen und zumeist nicht autorisierten Nachschriften, ein Einfühlen in die persönlichen und wissenschaftlichen Umstände des Weierstraßschen Wirkens. Die allgemein anerkannte prägende Bedeutung des Weierstraßschen Grundlagen­ beitrages für die moderne Mathematik widerspiegelt sich bisher in der internationalen mathematikhistorischen Literatur nur unzureichend. Es ist deshalb sehr zu begrüßen, daß es der Herausgeber mit der Edition der von WEIERSTRASS nur einmal gehaltenen Vorlesung "Ausgewählte Kapitel aus der Funktionenlehre" (1886) unternommen hat, jene Lücke schließen zu helfen.