Walther Franz Anton von Dyck (6 December 1856 in Munich – 5 November 1934 in Munich), born Dyck and later ennobled, was a German mathematician. He is credited with being the first to define a mathematical group, in the modern sense in (von Dyck 1882), and laid the foundations of combinatorial group theory,[1] being the first to systematically study a group by generators and relations.[1]
The Dyck language in formal language theory is named after him, as are Dyck's theorem and Dyck's surface in the theory of surfaces, together with the von Dyck groups, the Dyck tessellations, and the Dyck graph.
Von Dyck was a student of Felix Klein,[1] and he was also the editor of Kepler's works.