Nationality Polish Alma mater University of Berlin Role Mathematician | Institutions University of Leipzig Name Leon Lichtenstein Fields Mathematics | |
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Born 16 May 1878
Warsaw, Russian Empire ( 1878-05-16 ) Doctoral students Hermann Boerner
Ernst Holder
Erich Kahler
Karl Maruhn
Aurel Wintner Died August 21, 1933, Zakopane, Poland Education Humboldt University of Berlin Doctoral advisor Hermann Schwarz, Friedrich Schottky Notable students Aurel Wintner, Hermann Boerner Similar People Aurel Wintner, Hermann Schwarz, Friedrich Schottky, Constantin Caratheodory | ||
Leon Lichtenstein (16 May 1878 – 21 August 1933) was a Polish-German mathematician, who made contributions to the areas of differential equations, conformal mapping, and potential theory. He was also interested in theoretical physics, publishing research in hydrodynamics and astronomy.
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Life and work
Leon Lichtenstein was born on 16 May 1878, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire. His cousin, Leo Wiener, was the father of MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener. He studied in Berlin, earning both a doctorate in mechanical and electrical engineering at the Technische Hochschule Berlin and a doctorate in mathematics at the Friedrich Wilhelm University with a thesis on differential equations written under the supervision of Hermann Schwarz and Friedrich Schottky. From 1902 he worked as an electrical engineer for Siemens & Halske, then, from 1910, he turned to the academic world by becoming privatdozent at the Berlin Technische Hochschule. Lichtenstein was one of the founders, in 1918, and the first editor of the journal Mathematische Zeitschrift. In 1920 he moved to a mathematics chair at the University of Munster and in 1922 he joined the University of Leipzig where he would spend the rest of his career. At the University of Leipzig he founded a mathematical school and his students, including Ernst Holder, Erich Kahler, Aurel Wintner, Hermann Boerner and Karl Maruhn, continuing his research in mathematics and theoretical physics.
In 1933, as the Nazi party came to power in Germany, Lichtenstein abandoned his position at the university and left to Poland, as he would have been dismissed anyway for being Jewish. Shortly after, on 21 August 1933, he died of heart and kidney problems in Zakopane, in Poland.