Person: Hlawka, Edmund
Edmund Hlawka was an Austrian mathematician who made important contributions to the geometry of numbers, to the theory of uniform distribution and to numerical integration.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- This is an official document which we believe to be correct but as he appears never to have used his middle name, or even its initial, we have simply listed him as Edmund Hlawka.
- Hlawka graduated from the Gymnasium in 1934 and later that same year he entered the University of Vienna where he studied mathematics, physics and astronomy.
- It was the number theory that he was taught by Nikolaus Hofreiter that interested Hlawka most and he undertook research for his doctorate advised by Hofreiter.
- He habilitated in 1933, the year before Hlawka began his studies at the University of Vienna.
- In 1938 Hlawka was awarded his doctorate for his thesis Über die Approximationen von zwei komplexen inhomogenen Linearformen.
- After the award of his doctorate, Hlawka remained at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Vienna where he was employed as a research assistant.
- In 1941 he was promoted to assistant and then in 1944 he habilitated with his thesis Zur Geometrie der Zahlen Ⓣ(On the geometry of numbers) in which he proved a long-standing conjecture of Hermann Minkowski which today is known as the Minkowski-Hlawka Theorem.
- Hlawka, however, did not like travelling and so he turned down most of the invitations and continued to work at the University of Vienna.
- Now there was one invitation for an extended research visit that Hlawka did not want to turn down, namely an invitation to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in the United States.
- Hlawka received many honours for his outstanding contributions.
- In addition to around 150 research papers, Hlawka wrote six books, some with co-authors.
- Of particular importance are his results in the geometry of numbers (especially the Minkowski-Hlawka theorem) and uniform distribution.
- Edmund Hlawka has contributed a general introduction.
- In this book, the editor attempts to summarize Hlawka's results from 1935 to his 85th birthday in 2001.
Born 5 November 1916, Bruck an der Mur, Styria, Austria. Died 19 February 2009, Vienna, Austria.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Austria
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
-
- 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
