Person: Ljunggren, Wilhelm
Wilhelm Ljunggren was a Norwegian mathematician who specialised in number theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Wilhelm attended secondary school in Oslo, graduating in 1925.
- Ljunggren won the prize in his final year at secondary school.
- Ljunggren graduated in 1931 and Thoralf Skolem, who was a student of Axel Thue, had advised him during the research for his Master's thesis.
- Skolem moved to the Christian Michelsen's Institute in Bergen as a Research Associate in 1930 and so Ljunggren, who wished to keep in contact with Skolem, accepted a position as a secondary school teacher in Bergen.
- Ljunggren undertook research in number theory during the years he taught at the secondary school in Bergen and he submitted his doctoral thesis to the University of Oslo in 1937.
- Ljunggren followed Skolem to Oslo, for in 1938 he became a teacher at the Hegedehaugen School.
- The University of Bergen was founded in 1946 and, three years later, Ljunggren was appointed as professor of mathematics there.
- Although Ljunggren quickly built up a strong teaching department in Bergen he took the opportunity to return to Oslo in 1956 when he was offered the chair of mathematics there.
- By this time Skolem was retiring and Ljunggren took over the responsibilities of keeping Oslo as a leading institution for mathematics.
- Ljunggren taught part-time at the Technical Institute to help his friend build its reputation.
- Almost all of Ljunggren's research was on Diophantine equations.
- One of Ljunggren's main interests was Diophantine equations of degree 4.
- In the paper Ljunggren found bounds for the number of integer solutions for some special equations of this type.
- Here is one further example of the results obtained by Ljunggren.
- On the other hand, Ljunggren submitted also many problems, addressed to university students as well as high-school pupils.
Born 7 October 1905, Oslo, Norway. Died 25 January 1973, Oslo, Norway.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Norway
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
