Person: Kähler, Erich
Erich Kähler was a German mathematician who worked in geometry and mathematical physics. His work is valuable in string theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Erich attended school in Leipzig.
- After wanting to to follow Hedin and be an explorer, Erich developed an interest in astronomy which by about the age of 12 developed into a love for mathematics.
- He gave these to Kähler who, through studying them, learnt about the work of Gauss and about elliptic and abelian functions.
- Kähler, while still at school, had the idea of writing a doctoral thesis on fractional differentiation.
- His thesis advisor was Leon Lichtenstein but Kähler chose himself the topic for his doctoral dissertation Über die Existenz von Gleichgewichtsfiguren, die sich aus gewissen Lösungen des n-Körperproblems ableiten Ⓣ(On the existence of equilibrium figures which are derived from certain solutions of the n-body problem)).
- However Kähler found Hamburg an exciting and inspiring mathematical environment, so chose to remain there.
- In 1932 Kähler published Über eine bemerkenswerte Hermitesche Metrik Ⓣ(Over a remarkable Hermitian metric) in which he introduced the notion of what today are called Kähler metrics.
- This paper was the starting point for Kähler geometry with its notions of Kähler manifolds and Kähler groups which are today fundamental ideas in string theory and the study of space-time.
- Kähler went to the University of Königsberg in 1935 and he was appointed an ordinary professor in the following year.
- Artin died at the end of 1962 and in 1964 Kähler was offered the vacant chair at Hamburg.
- In The Poincaré group (1986) Kähler defines a new Poincaré group using the theory of quaternions and puts forward the hypothesis that a general theory of matter must be founded on this new Poincaré group.
- In Raum-Zeit-Individuum Ⓣ(Space-time-individual) (1992) Kähler attempts to reformulate the Lorentz metric of space-time relativity physics in order to rid it of the purely imaginary time variable.
- Kähler received many honours.
Born 16 January 1906, Leipzig, Germany. Died 31 May 2000, Wedel, near Hamburg, Germany.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Origin Germany
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
