Person: Hindenburg, Carl Friedrich
Carl Friedrich Hindenburg published a series of works on combinatorial mathematics.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Hindenburg entered the University of Leipzig in 1757 but at this stage his interests were not focused on mathematics, rather he was interested in a wide range of subjects.
- Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, whose whole career was spent at the University of Leipzig, had been promoted to professor there six years before Hindenburg entered the university.
- Gellert, who tutored Hindenburg, arranged with him that he should take on the task of accompanying a student named Schönborn through his education.
- This was an important event for Hindenburg for Schönborn's increasing interest in mathematics took Hindenburg in that direction too.
- As well as at Leipzig, Schönborn studied at Göttingen and while he was there Hindenburg became a friend of Kästner, who had himself taught at Leipzig earlier in his career.
- Through this Hindenburg did not neglect his own studies and he was awarded a Master's degree from the University of Leipzig in 1771 and appointed as a Privatdozent there in that year.
- Even before his appointment as a Privatdozent, Hindenburg had published articles but these were not in mathematics.
- Hindenburg published a series of works on combinatorial mathematics, in particular probability, series and formulae for higher differentials.
- Hindenburg hoped for combinatorial operations to have the same importance as those of arithmetic, algebra and analysis but his expectations were not realised.
- Although essentially forgotten now, Hindenburg's combinatorics was very fashionable 1800 although it is now clear that its importance being much overestimated.
- It would be too easy to dismiss Hindenburg's combinatorics, however, for they had some important consequences.
- In 1781 Hindenburg was appointed as professor of philosophy in the University of Leipzig.
- It was not only for his school of combinatorial analysis that Hindenburg is famous.
Born 13 July 1741, Dresden, Germany. Died 17 March 1808, Leipzig, Germany.
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Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Germany
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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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
