Fredholm

Erik Ivar Fredholm

Born: 7 April 1866 in Stockholm, Sweden
Died: 17 Aug 1927 in Stockholm, Sweden

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Fredholm was a student at Uppsala, then later at Stockholm and undertook research into mathematical physics. His Ph.D. from Uppsala was awarded in 1896. He was appointed to a chair in mechanics and mathematical physics at Stockholm in 1906. He made important contributions to mathematical physics.

A student of Mittag-Leffler, Fredholm is best remembered for his work on integral equations and spectral theory. He developed the theory of Fredholm integral equations in Sur une nouvelle méthode pour la résolution du problème de Dirichlet (1900). Volterra had studied some aspects of integral equations but before Fredholm little had been done.

Fredholm wrote papers with great care and attention so he produced work of high quatity which quickly gained him a high reputation through Europe. However his papers required so much effort from him that he wrote only a few. Hilbert extended Fredholm's work to include a complete eigenvalue theory for the Fredholm integral equation.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. N Zeilon, Obituary of Erik Ivar Fredholm, Oeuvres complète de Ivar Fredholm (Malmö, 1955). 
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