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Felix Klein
Times obituary
Mrs. Grace Chisholm Young sends us from Collonge, La Conversion, Switzerland, the following tribute to Professor Felix Klein, Professor of Mathematics at Göttingen, and editor of the Mathematical Annalen, who died recently at the age of 70:-
Klein was born on April 25, 1849, and used to point out, with a smile, the numerical suggestiveness of this date, composed as it is of the squares of three prime numbers. At 17, he was already assistant to the geometer, Julius Plücker, at Bonn. At 19, he obtained his doctor's degree. At the outbreak of the Franco-German War, he was in Paris, studying and producing valuable work in comradeship with his Swedish competitor, Sophus Lie. At 23, he became a full professor. On Plücker's death, he was given the task of editing Plücker's unfinished book on the New Geometry of Space. Here he soon fell under the influence of our English textbooks by Salmon, using, in general, the German edition by Fiedler, although, as he said, the beauty of the style had suffered by translation. The generation of mathematicians to which Klein belonged brought to its full development the theory of functions of a complex variable. His name will always be associated with that of Henri Poincaré for their discovery of automorphic functions. A special case of these, carefully investigated by Klein, is the modular function occurring in elliptic functions. The leading idea with which Klein enriched mathematics is that of the coordination of the parts of geometrical science by means of the theory of groups. This was the theme of his inaugural lecture in 1872, commonly called the Erlangen Programme, recalling the sunny days when the tall, handsome young professor wooed and won the lovely granddaughter of the philosopher Hegel.
After holding a Chair, first at Erlangen, then at Munich, and then at Leipzig. Klein was called to Göttingen in 1886. He was already a celebrity. One of Weierstrass's pupils, still alive, told me that at Berlin Klein was anathema; it was said that his work was not mathematics at all, but mere talk. This criticism shows a want of appreciation of his rare type of mind. It teemed with ideas and brilliant reflections, but it is true that his work lacks the stern aspects required by mathematical exactitude. It was in personal contact that this was corrected, at least in so far as his students were concerned. His favourite maxim was, "Never be dull!" His papers were collected and issued in three volumes under his own auspices (1921–1923). This is his literary testament, incorporating detailed autobiographical notes of intensely human interest. Though essentially a mathematician, Klein was a man of many interests, in particular applied science He regretted that his early successes had prevented the realization of a plan by which he would have studied physics under Lord Kelvin.
Klein's connections with England were intimate. He was an honorary member of our most distinguished learned societies and received the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society in 1893, an honour he much appreciated. When in that year he and others succeeded in opening the doors of the University of Göttingen to women, it was, I think, a real pleasure to him that the first woman to take the degree of D.Phil. should do so under his auspices and should be a Girton girl who had sat at the feet of his revered friend Cayley. It is due in large part to him that the study of applied science at the German universities assumed the position it now holds and that institutes of mathematics, pure and applied, have been erected. In almost all realms except music Klein had his say. This was quite contrary to the German pigeon-holing tradition, and there was a certain malicious pleasure on the part of certain people when Klein was put into the Prussian House of Lords ("Herrenhaus") where, they said he would have enough to occupy his unsleeping mind. A lasting monument to his fame remains in the "Mathematical Encyclopædia," of which he was the originator and part editor. He was also the President of the International Commission on Mathematical Teaching, in which he took a special interest.
The aim of his life was to knit together in unity of object and of effort the world of science, without distinction of nationality. By the irony of fate, he is best known to many as one of the famous 93 who signed the manifesto, "It is not true ..." in October 1914. As soon as the Armistice was signed, I wrote to him urging him to let me know whether, as we supposed, his signature had been obtained by a ruse, such as I knew to have been the case with the astronomer Foerster. On December 7, 1918, Klein wrote me a circumstantial account of the matter. He first saw the document in the newspaper with his name printed below, he having telegraphed his consent when asked if he would sign an appeal to the intellectuals of the civilized world to maintain an objective attitude during the war.
Mrs. Grace Chisholm Young sends us from Collonge, La Conversion, Switzerland, the following tribute to Professor Felix Klein, Professor of Mathematics at Göttingen, and editor of the Mathematical Annalen, who died recently at the age of 70:-
Klein was born on April 25, 1849, and used to point out, with a smile, the numerical suggestiveness of this date, composed as it is of the squares of three prime numbers. At 17, he was already assistant to the geometer, Julius Plücker, at Bonn. At 19, he obtained his doctor's degree. At the outbreak of the Franco-German War, he was in Paris, studying and producing valuable work in comradeship with his Swedish competitor, Sophus Lie. At 23, he became a full professor. On Plücker's death, he was given the task of editing Plücker's unfinished book on the New Geometry of Space. Here he soon fell under the influence of our English textbooks by Salmon, using, in general, the German edition by Fiedler, although, as he said, the beauty of the style had suffered by translation. The generation of mathematicians to which Klein belonged brought to its full development the theory of functions of a complex variable. His name will always be associated with that of Henri Poincaré for their discovery of automorphic functions. A special case of these, carefully investigated by Klein, is the modular function occurring in elliptic functions. The leading idea with which Klein enriched mathematics is that of the coordination of the parts of geometrical science by means of the theory of groups. This was the theme of his inaugural lecture in 1872, commonly called the Erlangen Programme, recalling the sunny days when the tall, handsome young professor wooed and won the lovely granddaughter of the philosopher Hegel.
After holding a Chair, first at Erlangen, then at Munich, and then at Leipzig. Klein was called to Göttingen in 1886. He was already a celebrity. One of Weierstrass's pupils, still alive, told me that at Berlin Klein was anathema; it was said that his work was not mathematics at all, but mere talk. This criticism shows a want of appreciation of his rare type of mind. It teemed with ideas and brilliant reflections, but it is true that his work lacks the stern aspects required by mathematical exactitude. It was in personal contact that this was corrected, at least in so far as his students were concerned. His favourite maxim was, "Never be dull!" His papers were collected and issued in three volumes under his own auspices (1921–1923). This is his literary testament, incorporating detailed autobiographical notes of intensely human interest. Though essentially a mathematician, Klein was a man of many interests, in particular applied science He regretted that his early successes had prevented the realization of a plan by which he would have studied physics under Lord Kelvin.
Klein's connections with England were intimate. He was an honorary member of our most distinguished learned societies and received the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society in 1893, an honour he much appreciated. When in that year he and others succeeded in opening the doors of the University of Göttingen to women, it was, I think, a real pleasure to him that the first woman to take the degree of D.Phil. should do so under his auspices and should be a Girton girl who had sat at the feet of his revered friend Cayley. It is due in large part to him that the study of applied science at the German universities assumed the position it now holds and that institutes of mathematics, pure and applied, have been erected. In almost all realms except music Klein had his say. This was quite contrary to the German pigeon-holing tradition, and there was a certain malicious pleasure on the part of certain people when Klein was put into the Prussian House of Lords ("Herrenhaus") where, they said he would have enough to occupy his unsleeping mind. A lasting monument to his fame remains in the "Mathematical Encyclopædia," of which he was the originator and part editor. He was also the President of the International Commission on Mathematical Teaching, in which he took a special interest.
The aim of his life was to knit together in unity of object and of effort the world of science, without distinction of nationality. By the irony of fate, he is best known to many as one of the famous 93 who signed the manifesto, "It is not true ..." in October 1914. As soon as the Armistice was signed, I wrote to him urging him to let me know whether, as we supposed, his signature had been obtained by a ruse, such as I knew to have been the case with the astronomer Foerster. On December 7, 1918, Klein wrote me a circumstantial account of the matter. He first saw the document in the newspaper with his name printed below, he having telegraphed his consent when asked if he would sign an appeal to the intellectuals of the civilized world to maintain an objective attitude during the war.
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