Person: Von Seidel, Philipp Ludwig

Philipp von Seidel was a German mathematician who worked on dioptics and mathematical analysis.

This meant that Philipp attended several different schools during his upbringing.
Although Seidel completed his school studies in the autumn of 1839 he did not enter university immediately but received private coaching in mathematics before beginning his university career.
This was valuable coaching for Seidel, particularly since Schnürlein was a good mathematician who had studied under Gauss.
Seidel entered the University of Berlin in 1840 and studied under Dirichlet and Encke.
The custom among German students at this time was to spend time at different universities and, following the usual custom, Seidel moved to Königsberg in 1842 where he studied under Bessel, Jacobi and Franz Neumann.
Bessel certainly seems to have expected Jacobi to be away from Königsberg for a long while since he advised Seidel to go to Munich to study for his doctorate.
Like these two theses, Seidel worked on dioptics and mathematical analysis throughout his career.
His work on lenses, and identified mathematically five coefficients describing the aberration of a lens, now called 'Seidel sums'.
These Seidel sums correspond to spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, Petzval curvature and distortion.
Seidel progressed rapidly at Munich.
An interesting aspect of Seidel's astronomical work involved, as we mentioned above, the use of probability theory.
Problems with his eyesight forced Seidel into early retirement.

Born 24 October 1821, Zweibrücken, Germany. Died 13 August 1896, Munich, Germany.

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Astronomy, Origin Germany

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive