Person: Theilheimer, Feodor
Feodor Theilheimer was a German mathematician who was forced to move to America. He worked for the US Department of Defense on the research and development of ship design and construction.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Gustav Theilheimer was a cattle dealer and also bought hops.
- Before we give a biography of Feodor, we give some details of what happened to his four siblings who survived to adulthood.
- Feodor Theilheimer began his education in a one-room Jewish school in Gunzenhausen.
- This school was non-sectarian and had an entrance examination but this was not a challenge to Theilheimer.
- Theilheimer was given religious instruction by Hauptlehrer Marx who had taught him in the Jewish school.
- However, Gunzenhausen did not have either of these schools so Theilheimer went to Nuremberg in 1925 to spend three years studying at the Oberrealschule there.
- Theilheimer only spent one year at this seminary before entering the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin in 1932 to study mathematics.
- Among the mathematicians at Berlin when Theilheimer was studying there were Ludwig Bieberbach, Alfred Brauer, Georg Feigl, Erhard Schmidt, Richard von Mises, and Issai Schur.
- Theilheimer entered the university before the Nazis came to power in January 1933 but once the Nazis took over the government things became exceptionally difficult both for Jewish professors and for Jewish students.
- Theilheimer was able to continue to study at Berlin, mainly taking courses by Schur and Schmidt, and undertook research on invariant theory for his doctorate advised by Issai Schur.
- Despite this humiliating situation for Schur and his student, Theilheimer submitted his thesis Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der charakteristischen Invarianten Ⓣ(A contribution to the theory of characteristic invariants) and was awarded his doctorate in 1936.
- Theilheimer taught in a school in Berlin for a year after the award of his doctorate.
- However, after arriving in the United States was difficult for Theilheimer to find work suited to his academic attainments.
- On Tuesday 30 December, Theilheimer was introduced by Richard von Mises and delivered the talk The potential of curvilinear distributions to the Applied Mathematics Section.
- In September 1942 Theilheimer was appointed as an instructor in mathematics at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
- Dr Theilheimer, German born and bred, received his degree from the University of Berlin.
- Dr Theilheimer resigned from the Brown faculty in 1942 to accept the post of instructor in mathematics at Trinity College in September of that year.
- In addition to all this research that he is conducting, Dr Theilheimer is instructing the Freshmen and other Math 1 majors in the principles of plane trigonometry and elementary calculus.
- Feodor Theilheimer ...
- Theilheimer was much involved with the Mathematical Association of America.
- This paper gives a good indication of the type of work Theilheimer was carrying out at the Model Basin.
- In 1961, Theilheimer and Pao C Pien were awarded the David W Taylor Award for Scientific Achievement.
- Dr Theilheimer was present to receive the award letter and citation.
- Dr Feodor Theilheimer.
- In 1969 Theilheimer published the paper Matrix Version of the Fast Fourier Transform in the IEEE Transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics.
- After retiring in 1977 Theilheimer taught mathematics courses at the University of Maryland until 1983.
Born 18 June 1909, Gunzenhausen, Germany. Died 24 December 2000, Chevy Chase, Montgomery County, Maryland, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Germany
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
