Ernst Witt

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Ernst Witt (June 26, 1911-July 3, 1991) was a German mathematician born on the island of Als, (German: Alsen). Shortly after his birth, he and his parents moved to China, and he didn't return to Europe until he was nine.

After his schooling, Witt went to the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau, and Göttingen, where he became a lecturer. From 1937 until 1979, he taught at the university of Hamburg. He died in Hamburg in 1991.

Witt's work was mainly concerned with the theory of quadratic forms and related subjects such as algebraic function fields.

[edit] References

• Ernst Witt Collected papers. Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1998. ISBN 3-540-57061-6

[edit] See also

• Witt algebra
• Witt group
• Hasse-Witt matrix
• Witt ring
• Bourbaki-Witt theorem
• Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt theorem
• Shirshov-Witt theorem
• Witt's theorem
• Witt vector

[edit] External links

• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Ernst Witt". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.