Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann (April 12, 1852 - March 6 1939) was a German mathematician, noted for his proof, published in 1882, that π is a transcendental number, i.e., it is not a zero of any polynomial with rational coefficients.

Life and education

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Lindemann was born in Hanover, Germany. His father, Ferdinand Lindemann, taught modern languages at a Gymnasium in Hanover. His mother, Emilie Crusius, was the daughter of the Gymnasium's headmaster. The family later moved to Schwerin, where young Ferdinand attended school.

He studied mathematics at Göttingen, Erlangen, and Munich. At Erlangen he received a doctorate, supervised by Felix Klein, on non-Euclidean geometry.

While a professor at the University of Königsberg, Lindemann acted as supervisor for the doctoral thesis of David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski.

Transcendence proof

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In 1882, he published the result for which he is best known, the transcendence of π. His methods were similar to those used nine years earlier by Charles Hermite to show that e, the base of natural logarithms, is transcendental. Before the publication of Lindemann's proof, it was known that if π is transcendental, then the ancient and celebrated problem of squaring the circle by compass and straightedge could not be solved.

See also

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• Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem

Reference

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Lindemann, F. "Über die Zahl π", Mathematische Annalen 20 (1882): pp. 213-225.

External links

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1852 births | 1939 deaths | 19th century mathematicians | 20th century mathematicians | German mathematicians | Number theorists

Ferdinand von Lindemann | Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann | Ferdinand von Lindemann | フェルディナント・フォン・リンデマン | Ferdinand Lindemann | Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann