◀ ▲ ▶History / 19th-century / Person: Wangerin, Friedrich Heinrich Albert

Person: Wangerin, Friedrich Heinrich Albert

Albert Wangerin was a German mathematician who worked on potential theory, spherical functions and differential geometry.

Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):

• Albert attended the gymnasium at Greiffenberg from 1853 to 1862, obtaining the grade "excellent" in his final examinations in 1862.
• From Halle Wangerin moved to the University of Königsberg in 1864 where he undertook research under Franz Neumann's supervision.
• It is clear, both from Wangerin's subsequent career, and from his writings, that he was greatly influenced by Neumann.
• Wangerin went on to undertake research for the rest of his life on topics suggested by Neumann.
• The book was entitled Franz Neumann und sein Wirken als Forscher und Lehrer Ⓣ(Franz Neumann and his work as a researcher and teacher) while Wangerin actually published three articles on his former teacher, one in Jahresberichte der Deutschen Mathematiker vereinigung (1894-95), one in Leopoldina (1896), and the article Franz Neumann als Mathematiker in Zeitschrift für Physik (1910).
• Although Jacobi had died over ten years before Wangerin began his studies at Königsberg, his influence was still strongly felt and it would not be unreasonable to say that Wangerin, through his teachers at Königsberg, was strongly influenced by Jacobi's style of mathematics.
• Wangerin moved from Posen back to Berlin where again he taught mathematics in a Gymnasium from 1 April 1869 until 31 March 1876.
• In addition to his teaching activities, Wangerin also took on the role of coeditor of the yearbook Jahrbuchs über die Fortschritte der Mathematik Ⓣ(Yearbook on the progress of mathematics) in 1869.
• In the spring of 1876 Wangerin was appointed as an extraordinary professor at the University of Berlin.
• Wangerin remained in Berlin until 1882 when he was offered the position of ordinary professor at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.
• The chair had fallen vacant when Heine died in October 1881, and Wangerin was appointed to succeed his former teacher.
• Back in the university in which he had studied as an undergraduate, Wangerin held his professorship there until he retired in 1919.
• Wangerin's research was on potential theory, spherical functions and differential geometry.
• Despite great expertise in applications to mathematical physics, research was not the most important of Wangerin's contributions to the development of mathematics.
• Wangerin's main contribution was his writing of textbooks, writing for encyclopaedias and his historical writings.
• As examples of Wangerin's historical writing, in addition to the articles on his teacher Franz Neumann which we mentioned above, we should point in particular to the article he wrote on Eduard Heine in 1928 as well as to his input to editing the works of Gauss, Euler, Lambert, and Lagrange.
• Wangerin was honoured with election to the German Academy of Scientists Leopoldina in 1883.

Born 18 November 1844, Greiffenberg, Prussia, Germany. Died 25 October 1933, Halle, Germany.

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References

Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:

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