Emil Artin (nonfiction)
Emil Artin (German: [ˈaɐ̯tiːn]; March 3, 1898 – December 20, 1962) was an Austrian mathematician.
Artin was one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century.
He is best known for his work on algebraic number theory, contributing largely to class field theory and a new construction of L-functions.
He also contributed to the pure theories of rings, groups and fields.
As a boy, Artin formed a lifelong friendship with a young neighbor, Arthur Baer, who became an astronomer, teaching for many years at Cambridge University. Astronomy was an interest the two boys shared already at this time. They each had telescopes. They also rigged a telegraph between their houses, over which once Baer excitedly reported to his friend an astronomical discovery he thought he had made—perhaps a supernova, he thought—and told Artin where in the sky to look. Artin tapped back the terse reply “A-N-D-R-O-M-E-D-A N-E-B-E-L” (Andromeda nebula).
By June 1919, he had moved to Leipzig and matriculated at the University there as a "Class 2 Auditor" ("Hörer zweiter Ordnung").
From 1919 to June 1921, Artin pursued mostly mathematical studies at Leipzig. His principal teacher and dissertation advisor was Gustav Herglotz. Additionally, Artin took courses in chemistry and various fields of physics, including mechanics, atomic theory, quantum theory, Maxwellian theory, radioactivity, and astrophysics. In June, 1921 he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree, based on his “excellent” dissertation, “Quadratische Körper im Gebiete der höheren Kongruenzen“ ("On the Arithmetic of Quadratic Function Fields over Finite Fields"), and the oral examination which—his diploma affirms—he had passed three days earlier “with extraordinary success.”
In the fall of 1921, Artin moved to Göttingen, considered the "Mecca" of mathematics at the time, where he pursued one year of post-doctoral studies in mathematics and mathematical physics with Richard Courant and David Hilbert. While at Göttingen, he worked closely with Emmy Noether and Helmut Hasse.
Courant arranged for Artin to receive a stipend for the summer of 1922 in Göttingen, which occasioned his declining a position offered him at the University of Kiel. The following October, however, he accepted an equivalent position at Hamburg, where in 1923, he completed the Habilitation thesis (required of aspirants to a professorship in Germany), and on July 24 advanced to the rank of Privatdozent.
On April 1, 1925, Artin was promoted to Associate Professor (außerordentlicher Professor). In this year also, Artin applied for and was granted German citizenship. He was promoted to full Professor (ordentlicher Professor) on October 15, 1926.
Early in 1926, the University of Münster offered Artin a professorial position; however, Hamburg matched the offer financially, and (as noted above) promoted him to full professor, making him (along with his young colleague Helmut Hasse) one of the two youngest professors of mathematics in Germany.
It was in this period that he acquired his lifelong nickname, “Ma,” short for mathematics, which he came to prefer to his given name, and which virtually everyone who knew him well used. Although the nickname might seem to imply a narrow intellectual focus, quite the reverse was true of Artin. Even his teaching at the University of Hamburg went beyond the strict boundaries of mathematics to include mechanics and relativity theory. He kept up on a serious level with advances in astronomy, chemistry and biology (he owned and used a fine microscope), and the circle of his friends in Hamburg attests to the catholicity of his interests. It included the painter Heinrich Stegemann, and the author and organ-builder Hans Henny Jahn. Stegemann was a particularly close friend, and made portraits of Artin, Natascha and the two children born in Hamburg. Music continued to play a central role in his life; he acquired a Neupert double manual harpsichord, and a clavichord made by the Hamburg builder Walter Ebeloe, as well as a silver flute made in Hamburg by G. Urban. Chamber music gatherings became a regular event at the Artin apartment as they had been at the Courants in Göttingen.
On August 15, 1929, Artin married Natalia Naumovna Jasny (Natascha), a young Russian émigré who had been a student in several of his classes.
In January 1933, Natascha gave birth to their first child, Karin. A year and a half later, in the summer of 1934, son Michael was born. The political climate at Hamburg was not so poisonous as that at Göttingen, where by 1935 the mathematics department had been purged of Jewish and dissident professors. Still, Artin's situation became increasingly precarious, not only because Natascha was half Jewish, but also because Artin made no secret of his distaste for the Hitler regime. At one point, Wilhelm Blaschke, by then a Nazi Party member, but nonetheless solicitous of the Artins’ well-being, warned Artin discreetly to close his classroom door so his frankly anti-Nazi comments could not be heard by passersby in the hallway.
On July 15, 1937, because of Natascha’s status as “Mischling ersten Grades,” Artin had lost his post at the University—technically, compelled into early retirement—on the grounds of paragraph 6 of the Act to Restore the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums) of April 7, 1933. Ironically, he had applied only some months earlier, on February 8, 1937, for a leave of absence from the University in order to accept a position offered him at Stanford. On March 15, 1937, the response had come back denying his application for leave on the grounds that his services to the University were indispensable (“Da die Tätigkeit des Professors Dr. Artin an der Universität Hamburg nicht entbehrt werden kann. . .”).
By July, when he was summarily “retired,” (“in Ruhestand versetzt”) the position at Stanford had been filled. However, through the efforts of Richard Courant (by then in New York), and Solomon Lefschetz at Princeton, a position was found for him at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana.
In the News
Fiction cross-reference
Nonfiction cross-reference
- Richard Courant (nonfiction)
- Helmut Hasse (nonfiction)
- David Hilbert (nonfiction)
- Solomon Lefschetz (nonfiction)
- Mathematics (nonfiction)
- Emmy Noether (nonfiction)
External links:
- Emil Martin @ Wikipedia