Christoph Gudermann

Christoph Gudermann
Born March 25, 1798
Vienenburg,
Holy Roman Empire
Died September 25, 1852 (aged 54)
Münster, Westphalia, Germany
Residence Germany
Nationality German
Fields Mathematician
Institutions Münster Academy
Alma mater University of Göttingen
Doctoral advisor Carl Gauss
Doctoral students Karl Weierstrass
Known for Gudermannian function

Christoph Gudermann (March 25, 1798 – September 25, 1852) was born in Vienenburg. He was the son of a school teacher and became a teacher himself after studying at the University of Göttingen, where his advisor was Karl Friedrich Gauss. He began his teaching career in Kleve and then transferred to a school in Münster.

He is most known today for being the teacher of Karl Weierstrass, who took Gudermann's course in elliptic functions, 1839–1840, the first to be taught in any institute. Weierstrass was greatly influenced by this course, which marked the direction of his own research.

Gudermann originated the concept of uniform convergence, in an 1838 paper on elliptic functions, but only observed it informally, neither formalizing it nor using it in his proofs.[1] Instead, Weierstrass elaborated and applied uniform convergence.

His researches into spherical geometry and special functions focused on particular cases, so that he did not receive the credit given to those who published more general works. The Gudermannian function, or hyperbolic amplitude, is named after him.

Gudermann died in Münster.

References

  1. ↑ Jahnke, Hans Niels (2003), "6.7 The Foundation of Analysis in the 19th Century: Weierstrass", A history of analysis, AMS Bookstore, p. 184, ISBN 978-0-8218-2623-2

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