The stars shine
Unparalleled
"There is no life outside Göttingen. Even if there is a life, it is not such a life. ”
Before World War II, the University of Göttingen was a mecca for mathematics all over the world.
During that 150-year period, there was no match for a university in the natural sciences, especially in mathematics.
Hegemony is no accident, let's talk directly from the beginning of its mathematical rise.
The university's iconic "kissing master" – the little goose girl
Gathering is a fire
In 1795, at the age of 18, Gauss entered the University of Göttingen. He looked left and right, and this school didn't have a door, not even a wall. Although he is the prince of mathematics, which foot is the first step in, this mathematical problem is absolutely unsolvable in his case.
It was also this year that Gauss drew a 17-sided shape on a plain piece of paper using only the ruler and compass you used to draw circles when you were in middle school. For more than 2,000 years, it is the first time that euclidean geometry has been given an important complement.
Gauss, Prince of Mathematics
The University of Göttingen has Gauss, just as Gauss Ultraman has a Gauss cannon, full of mysterious light from the universe, with the power to crush everything.
Gaussian elimination, least squares, Gaussian integers, Gaussian circles, Gaussian fuzzy, Gaussian projection, Gaussian integral, Gaussian functions, Gaussian distributions, Gaussian formulas.......
He single-handedly thickened the world's mathematical books, and the Göttingen School of Mathematics was founded, and Gauss Junlin mathematics was founded.
Gauss was so prolific that it was as if a tall beacon had been lit up in the mathematical community of Europe.
Riemann, Deidkin, Dilicklet, Kumel, Weber, Germain... Mathematical geniuses gathered under this lighthouse. Since then, they have continued to erect new monuments in the fields of algebra, geometry, number theory, and analysis.
It is not enough to have a circle of math big guys under the lighthouse, the big guys still have to develop the downline, and the second circle of people follows up.
Max Lesch, Born, Frank and Bohr (from left to right).
Taken in Göttingen in 1923
Klein, Weierstrass, Hilbert, Burns, Steinhaus, Born, Pauli, Heisenberg, Minkowski, Dirac, Oppenheimer, Taylor...
Under Hilbert's leadership, the Göttingen School of Mathematics entered its heyday, and the University of Göttingen was firmly seated on the throne of the "International Center for Mathematical Research and Education", directly moving towards the peak of academic construction.
The more radiant the light, the more it attracts the attention of others, and more and more mathematicians are rushing here.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Göttingen had become the undisputed center and mecca of mathematics in the world. At that time, the loudest slogan among mathematicians students around the world was "Pack your backpack and go to Göttingen." ”
Scattered is full of stars
These people, gathered as a fire, scattered with stars.
Another angle of the mathematical prince Gauss
gauss
"What star do you say?" I can measure the trajectory of celestial bodies and successfully figure out where Ceres is. ”
That's right! Gauss not only came to the mathematical world, he also knew astronomy and geography, and as early as 1840, together with the German physicist Weber, he drew the world's first map of the earth's magnetic field.
The pride of mankind is beyond doubt!
Goss's successor Dirichlet (left)
Dirichlet's successor in Berlin, Kummer (center)
With Kumel's student Leopold Kronecker (right)
And Gauss's successor did not live up to his expectations. They not only left their "names" in the history of mathematics, but also with their strong sense of existence, everyone who studied mathematics could not avoid and could not get around.
Are you f(x)=f(-x) today?
Dedekin
Gauss's student Dedekin followed in the footsteps of the teacher, mathematics, physics, astronomy did not fall, many concepts and theorems are named after him.
Although he is still incomparable with Gauss, as the founder of modern real number theory, be careful that he gives you "Dedekin division"
Bonnhard Riemann
Dedekin also had a great god-level disciple, Bonnhard Riemann. Although Riemann only spent 39 years in this world, he left behind a "Riemann conjecture" that has been difficult for many mathematicians for more than a hundred years.
By the way, the world's seven major mathematical problems, do you know how many to solve?
Felix Klein
If Riemann had spent an extra 5 years in the world, he might have met Felix Klein. Klein became a professor of mathematics at the age of 23, and presumably after the two met, they would definitely feel sorry for each other.
But, perhaps within the Klein Bottle space, they had already seen it.
Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weerstrass
Although Riemann left, he left us with a lot of things that could not be valued.
On the basis of the Riemann integral, Weier strass established a solid foundation for mathematical analysis, and he also became the father of modern analysis.
David Hilbert
Standing on the ground laid by these predecessors, Hilbert shouted loudly: "We must know, we must know."
The University of Göttingen has ushered in its most glorious moment, reaching the top of the world and living up to the expectations of generations of predecessors.
Hilbert laughed and said, "Finding a child on the streets of Göttingen would be more geometric than Einstein." ”
Undaunted by floating clouds to obscure his eyes, Hilbert, the "uncrowned king", proposed 23 questions for mathematicians of the new century, and the study of these problems promoted the development of mathematics in the 20th century.
Born (left), Heisenberg (center)
Born's assistant pauli in Göttingen (right)
Mathematics is the foundation of all science. The University of Göttingen's strong natural science foundation has produced generations of talented people, including the founders of "quantum mechanics".
Born, Heisenberg, pauli founded quantum mechanics, pioneered the Copenhagen School, and all won the Nobel Prize in Physics!
Their time at the University of Göttingen has also been called the "Golden Age of Physics"!
After nearly 150 years, the University of Göttingen has finally built a towering mathematical edifice.
Fatal blow
However, the building collapsed in 1933.
In 1933, after Hitler came to power, the Nazi regime in Germany implemented totalitarian politics and genocidal policies, which caused a serious drain of German talent that was already famous abroad.
Between 1933 and 1934, about 7,000 People from German universities fled to the United States. By 1940, Germany had lost about 500 natural science professors, 450 medical professors, and 300 humanities professors, leading to a decades-long setback in German scholarship.
A large number of well-known Jewish scientists and scholars were forced to leave Germany and go to Princeton, Chicago and other places in the United States.
Includes Albert Einstein, James Frank, Gustav Hertz, Viktor Hess, Fritz Haber, Peter Debye, Otto Fritz Meyerhof, and Otto Loewi) and other winners of these Nobel Prizes in the Natural Sciences.
Einstein became an American citizen and never returned home.
The University of Göttingen was not spared, and could even be said to have suffered a fatal blow.
The center of science in the world immediately shifted from Germany to the United States.
During World War I (1914-1918), France, the mathematical power at the time, mistakenly sent many young scientific and technological talents to the forefront of the battlefield as cannon fodder, resulting in a crisis of French scientific talents facing a generational disconnection.
In 1934, the Nazi Education Minister asked: "How did mathematics at the University of Göttingen develop now that it was not influenced by the Jews?" ”
Hilbert, still in his post, is said to have replied only with one sentence: "There is no more mathematics in Göttingen".
But that doesn't mean Hilbert gave up.
In his later years, Hilbert was exhausted in order to stabilize the University of Göttingen, but it was still difficult to reverse the overall academic decline in Göttingen. Since then, no one has been able to revive its former glory.
Top scholars from the former University of Göttingen, the Copenhagen School, and the Bourbauchi School of mathematics and science gathered at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in the United States, which became the new center of mathematics in the world.
Hilbert's mathematical leadership was also replaced, and a new generation of giants such as French mathematicians André Weiy and Alexander Grothendieck shined.
Since then, German mathematics has gradually lagged behind the international mainstream, and the glory of the University of Göttingen has become a legend of yesterday.
Write at the end
In 1931, when Mei Yiqi became the president of Tsinghua University, he said: "The so-called university is not a building, but also a master." ”
Take history as a mirror and retain talents to have a brilliant future!
Gaussian seventeen-sided