Bieberbach

Ludwig Georg Elias Moses Bieberbach

Born: 4 Dec 1886 in Goddelau, Germany
Died: 1 Sept 1982

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Ludwig Bieberbach was Professor of Mathematics in Berlin and did important work on function theory.

Bieberbach had a reputation as an inspiring but rather disorganised teacher. He is best remembered (other than for his anti-Jewish views) for the Bieberbach Conjecture (1916). This was completely solved, after many partial results, in 1984 by Louis de Branges.

Bieberbach also studied polynomials (1914), now named after him, which approximate a function that conformally maps a given simply-connected domain onto a disc.

He developed the notion of a 'German' synthetic style mathematics as opposed to the abstract 'Jewish' analytic style. Bieberbach founded a journal Deutsche Mathematik to encourage this German style in mathematics but, happily, the journal failed.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Bieberbach's part in evaluating pi

References:

  1. H Mertens, Ludwig Bieberbach and Deutsche Mathematik, in E R Phillips (ed.), Studies in the history of mathematics (Washington DC, 1987). 
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JOC/EFR February 1996