Person: Bring, Erland Samuel
Erland Bring was a Swedish mathemaician who made contributions to the algebraic solution of equations.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- We note that Jöns Bring was one of six siblings, one of whom was Sven LagerBring (1707-1787).
- Sven LagerBring (or Sven Bring or Sven Lager Bring) was an historian and for many years professor of history at the University of Lund.
- Erland Bring studied law at Lund from 18 April 1750 and he took the state examination in law in 1757.
- This brief summary of Bring's career for the first thirty years of his life is somewhat misleading, for it was a career he followed to give himself financial security rather than one in which he was deeply interested.
- The topics that Bring loved most from an early age were mathematics and history.
- The award of the Master's Degree marks the start of Bring's move to a career teaching philosophy and history.
- The reader may wonder why Bring's biography is being set out in a History of Mathematics Archive.
- In fact, despite the fact that Bring held positions in law, in philosophy and in history, it is for his contributions to mathematics that he is mostly remembered today.
- This work describes Bring's contribution to the algebraic solution of equations.
- [Bring's "Reduction of the Quintic Equation" was republished by the Rev.
- Bring discovered an important transformation to simplify a quintic equation.
- The transformation used by Bring was later discovered independently and generalised by George Birch Jerrard in 1832-35.
- However, at the time of Bring's discovery, there was no hint that the quintic could not be solved by radicals and, although Bring does not claim that he discovered his transformation in an attempt to solve the quintic, it is likely that this is in fact why he was examining quintic equations.
- Finally, let us say a little about Bring's contributions as an historian.
- It is also worth noting that Sven LagerBring undertook a great deal of research but it is considered defective both in style and method.
- We relate this to explain that his influence on Bring was not the most positive and, perhaps as a consequence, Bring's work on history is not considered to be important.
- Bring's research contributions to history were mainly a continuation of his teaching and these were at a rather elementary level.
- Perhaps his most important historical work is "Commentarii de vita academica, quam Londini Gothorum degit Samuel Pufendorf" Ⓣ(Commentaries on the academic life: when Samual Pufendorf lived in London) (1781) which is useful because of the extensive knowledge that Bring had of the archives of the university through his time at a notary.
- His biography of Andreas Rydelius was completed in 1782 but only published in 1806 after Bring's death.
- In 1790 Bring was rector of the university.
Born 19 August 1736, Ausås, Ängelholm, Sweden. Died 20 May 1798, Lund, Sweden.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Algebra, Astronomy, Origin Sweden
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
