Person: Kürschák, József
József Kürschák was a Hungarian mathematician who founded the theory of valuations.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Kürschák attended secondary school in the flourishing city that became not only the capital of Hungary but also a major centre for industry, trade, communications, and architecture.
- Kürschák entered the Technical University of Budapest in 1881 and graduated in 1886 with qualifications to teach mathematics and physics in secondary schools.
- A trigonometric argument can be used to show that its area of the dodecagon is 3 but Kürschák gives a purely geometric proof.
- The first paper which Kürschák wrote was concerned with polygons.
- Another topic which Kürschák investigated was the differential equations of the calculus of variations.
- Kürschák's most important work, however, was in 1912 when he founded the theory of valuations.
- Kürschák's work was inspired by earlier work of Julius König, Steinitz and Hensel.
- The importance of Kürschák's valuations is that they allow notions of convergence and limits be used in the theory of abstract fields and greatly enrich the topic.
- Dénes König and Von Neumann were both students of Kürschák and many other famous mathematicians benefited from his teaching.
- Dénes König received his doctorate in 1907 for a thesis written under Kürschák's supervision.
- Indeed Kürschák achieved this through his excellent teaching as well as bringing the very best out of his students.
- He was one of the main organisers of mathematical competitions and to honour his outstanding contributions in this area the Loránd Eötvös Mathematics Competition, started in 1925, was renamed the József Kürschák Mathematics Competition in 1949.
- Kürschák was elected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1897.
Born 14 March 1864, Buda (now part of Budapest), Hungary. Died 26 March 1933, Budapest, Hungary.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Hungary
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
