Poul Heegaard
Poul Heegaard | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 7 February 1948 | (aged 76)
Nationality | Danish |
Alma mater | University of Copenhagen |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Topology |
Institutions | University of Copenhagen, University of Oslo |
Thesis | Forstudier til en topologisk Teori for de algebraiske Fladers Sammenhæng (1898) |
Poul Heegaard (Danish: [ˈhe̝ˀˌkɒˀ] ; November 2, 1871, Copenhagen - February 7, 1948, Oslo) was a Danish mathematician active in the field of topology. His 1898 thesis introduced a concept now called the Heegaard splitting of a 3-manifold. Heegaard's ideas allowed him to make a careful critique of work of Henri Poincaré. Poincaré had overlooked the possibility of the appearance of torsion in the homology groups of a space.
He later co-authored, with Max Dehn, a foundational article on combinatorial topology, in the form of an encyclopedia entry.[1]
Heegaard studied mathematics at the University of Copenhagen from 1889 to 1893. Following years of travelling, and teaching mathematics, he was appointed professor at University of Copenhagen in 1910. An English translation of his 1898 thesis, which laid a rigorous topological foundation for modern knot theory, may be found at https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/heegaardenglish.pdf. The section on "a visually transparent representation of the complex points of an algebraic surface" is especially important.
In 1936, Heegaard served as the President of The Third International Congress of Nationalists at The Nobel Institute. Following a talk titled "A Biologist's View of the Future of the White Race," Heegaard hosted a garden party for the Congress participants.[2]
Following a dispute with the faculty over, among other things, the hiring of Harald Bohr as professor at the University (which Heegaard opposed);[3] Heegaard accepted a professorship at Oslo in Norway, where he worked till his retirement in 1941.
Notes
- ^ Dehn, Max; Heegaard, Poul (1907). "Analysis situs". Enzyklop. d. math. Wissensch. Vol. III. pp. 153–220. JFM 38.0510.14.
- ^ "Programme of the Congress". National Archives. The Norwegian Committee of the Nationalist Academy for International Justice. 1936.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Munkholm, Ellen S.; Munkholm, Hans J. (1999), "Poul Heegaard", History of topology, North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp. 925–946, doi:10.1016/B978-044482375-5/50035-3, MR 1721129; see in particular pp. 937–938.
External links
- Works by or about Poul Heegaard at Internet Archive
- Heegaard, Poul (1898), Forstudier til en topologisk Teori for de algebraiske Fladers Sammenhang (PDF), Thesis (in Danish), JFM 29.0417.02
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Poul Heegaard", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- "Heegaard home page"
- Pages using the Phonos extension
- CS1 maint: url-status
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Articles with hCards
- Pages with Danish IPA
- Pages including recorded pronunciations
- Commons category link is on Wikidata
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- CS1 Danish-language sources (da)
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with GND identifiers
- Articles with J9U identifiers
- Articles with LCCN identifiers
- Articles with NKC identifiers
- Articles with NTA identifiers
- Articles with CINII identifiers
- Articles with MATHSN identifiers
- Articles with MGP identifiers
- Articles with ZBMATH identifiers
- Articles with DTBIO identifiers
- Articles with SUDOC identifiers
- 1871 births
- 1948 deaths
- Danish mathematicians
- Topologists
- Presidents of the Norwegian Mathematical Society
- All stub articles
- Danish scientist stubs
- European mathematician stubs