Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (17 September 1826 – 20 July 1866) was a German mathematician who made profound contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
Riemann (CAI) Quotes
"I'm still able to continue communicating because I have become an entity known as a mathematical ghost. It is a very strange concept to try and understand. I cannot physically interact with anything anymore, and my presence cannot physically be seen anymore. However ,I am still able to communicate with the material world, through the use of mathematics. Basically, mathematics is the one thing that has bridged the gap between life and death for me."
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Math
Riemannian Geometry
Riemann found the correct way to extend into n dimensions the differential geometry of surfaces
Complex Analysis
The introduction of Riemann surfaces, breaking new ground in a natural, geometric treatment of complex analysis
Real Analysis
First rigorous formulation of the integral, the Riemann integral, and his work on Fourier series
Number Theory
His 1859 paper on the prime-counting function, containing the original statement of the Riemann hypothesis, is regarded as a foundational paper of analytic number theory
Biography
Family
His father, Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, was a poor Lutheran pastor in Breselenz who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. His mother, Charlotte Ebell, died before her children had reached adulthood. Riemann was the second of six children, shy and suffering from numerous nervous breakdowns. Riemann exhibited exceptional mathematical talent, such as calculation abilities, from an early age but suffered from timidity and a fear of speaking in public.
Education
Lyceum (middle school) at Hanover High school in Johanneum Luneburg. Philology and Christian Theology to become a pastor and help with his family
During the spring of 1846, his father, after gathering enough money, sent Riemann to the University of Göttingen, where he planned to study towards a degree in theology. However, once there, he began studying mathematics under Carl Friedrich Gauss (specifically his lectures on the method of least squares)
Gauss recommended that Riemann give up his theological work and enter the mathematical field; after getting his father's approval, Riemann transferred to the University of Berlin in 1847.[6] During his time of study, Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Jakob Steiner, and Gotthold Eisenstein were teaching.
Academia
Riemann held his first lectures in 1854, which founded the field of Riemannian geometry and thereby set the stage for Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.
In 1862 he married Elise Koch; their daughter Ida Schilling was born on 22 December 1862
Died of tuberculosis
Reference