◀ ▲ ▶History / 19th-century / Person: Ostrowski, Alexander Markowich
Person: Ostrowski, Alexander Markowich
Alexander Ostrowski was a Ukranian-born mathematician who worked on a wide variety of topics in both analysis and algebra.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- For three years Ostrowski participated in Grave's seminar while completing his course at the School of Commerce.
- Ostrowski had not been a mere observer in Grave's seminar during these years, however, for by the time he completed his studies at the College of Commerce he had already found original results on Galois fields and had written his first paper with Grave's assistance.
- Ostrowski did poorly in this lottery and permission was not granted so Grave wrote to Edmund Landau and Hensel in Germany asking for their help.
- Both Landau and Hensel offered to help solve Ostrowski's problem and invited him to Germany.
- Ostrowski accepted Hensel's offer of a place at the Marburg University and in 1912 he began his studies there under Hensel's supervision.
- In the autumn of 1914, after the outbreak of war, Ostrowski was interned as a hostile foreigner.
- Hensel pleaded with the authorities on Ostrowski's behalf and although his movements remained severely restricted, he was allowed to use the library at Marburg University.
- When the war ended in 1918, Ostrowski was free to move around Germany and he went to Göttingen where Klein, Hilbert and Landau were major influences on him.
- After being awarded a Rockefeller Research Fellowship, Ostrowski spent the academic year 1925-26 in Britain, spending periods at each of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh.
- It was an arrangement which suited Ostrowski very well indeed.
- When we remarked above that Ostrowski "remained at Basel until he retired" this was not meant to imply that he did not travel.
- Ostrowski had an impressive publication record of around 275 works.
- Ostrowski's persistence manifested itself in the fact that, once he selected a topic, he investigated it exhaustively, not leaving any open questions.
- Other work of Ostrowski was on the Cauchy functional equation, the Fourier integral formula, Cauchy-Frullani integrals, and the Euler-Maclaurin formula.
Born 25 September 1893, Kiev, Russian Empire (now Kyiv, Ukraine). Died 20 November 1986, Montagnola, Lugano, Switzerland.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Ukraine
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
