Person: Crelle August Leopold
August Crelle was a German mathematician who founded an important mathematical journal.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Crelle was therefore largely self-taught, studying civil engineering.
- Crelle was certainly not a great original mathematician, but he had three qualities which made him as important for the subject as any great researcher might have been.
- Crelle was very much in control of the journal, and he acted as editor-in-chief for the first 52 volumes.
- Crelle realised the importance of Abel's work and published several articles by him in this first volume, including his proof of the insolubility of the quintic equation by radicals.
- Abel and Steiner had strongly encouraged Crelle in his founding of the journal and Steiner was also a major contributor to the first volume of Crelle's Journal.
- Other young mathematicians had their first papers published in Crelle's journal, largely due to his genius in spotting the importance of their research.
- In addition to Abel, mathematicians such as Dirichlet, Eisenstein, Grassmann, Hesse, Jacobi, Kummer, Lobachevsky, Möbius, Plücker, von Staudt, Steiner, and Weierstrass all had their early works made famous by publication in Crelle's journal.
- In 1828 Crelle left the service of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and joined the Prussian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs.
- He wrote a report on his return to Germany which praised highly the way that mathematics teaching was organised in France, but he was critical of the French having such a strong emphasis on the applications of mathematics rather than, what Crelle believed in, the importance of mathematical learning in its own right.
- We have mentioned above Crelle's reaction to pure and applied mathematics.
- This journal published 30 volumes but ended its run in 1851, a few years before Crelle's death.
- Crelle was elected to the Berlin Academy in 1827 with the strong support of Alexander von Humboldt.
- We should say a little about Crelle's personal character and lifestyle which also proved important in his successful ventures.
- Abel visited Crelle in Berlin not long before Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik began publication.
Born 11 March 1780, Eichwerder, (near Wriezen) Prussia (now Germany). Died 6 October 1855, Berlin, Prussia (now Germany).
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Tags relevant for this person:
Geometry, Origin Germany, Set Theory
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
