Johann Benedict Listing
{{Short description|German mathematician (1808–1882)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Johann Benedict Listing
|image = J-B-Listing.jpg
|caption = Listing, c. 1860
|birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1808|7|25}}
|birth_place = Frankfurt, Principality of Frankfurt
|death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1882|12|24|1808|7|25}}
|death_place = Göttingen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
|nationality = German
|fields = Mathematics
|alma_mater = University of Göttingen
|doctoral_advisor = Carl Friedrich Gauss
|doctoral_students = Edward Leamington Nichols
|known_for = Back-and-forth method
Listing number
Listing's knot
Listing's law
}}
Johann Benedict Listing (25 July 1808 – 24 December 1882) was a German mathematician.
Early life and education
J. B. Listing was born in Frankfurt and died in Göttingen. He finished his studies at the University of Göttingen in 1834, and in 1839 he succeeded Wilhelm Weber as professor of physics.
Career
Listing first introduced the term "topology" to replace the older term "geometria situs" (also called sometimes "Analysis situs"), in a famous article published in 1847, although he had used the term in correspondence some years earlier.{{Cite web|title=Johann Benedict Listing – Biography|url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Listing/|access-date=2021-12-24|website=Maths History|language=en}} He (independently) discovered the properties of the Möbius strip, or half-twisted strip, at the same time (1858) as August Ferdinand Möbius, and went further in exploring the properties of strips with higher-order twists (paradromic rings). He discovered topological invariants which came to be called Listing numbers.Peirce, C. S., 1992, Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conference Lectures of 1898, edited with introduction by Kenneth Laine Ketner and with commentary by Hilary Putnam, who discusses Listing numbers starting on page 99. It is currently difficult to find anything online about Listing numbers [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Listing+numbers%22+Peirce except in connection with Peirce].
In ophthalmology, Listing's law describes an essential element of extraocular eye muscle coordination.
In geodesy, he coined in 1872 the term "geoid" for the idealized geometric surface of the figure of the Earth, as previously conceptualized by his doctoral adviser, Gauss.{{cite book | last = Listing | first = Johann Benedict | title = Über unsere jetzige Kenntniss der Gestalt und Grösse der Erde: Aus den Nachrichten der K. Ges. der Wiss | publisher = Dieterich | year = 1872 | location = Göttingen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yQ9TAAAAcAAJ | language=de | access-date=2021-07-06 | page=}}
Personal life
Listing's granddaughter was British War Artist Anna Airy, by his younger daughter Anna.{{Cite web |title=Suffolk Artists - AIRY, Anna |url=https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=18 |access-date=2025-03-04 |website=suffolkartists.co.uk}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{MacTutor Biography|id=Listing}}
- A [http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/listing/ reprint] of (part of) his famous 1847 article introducing Topology, published in Vorstudien zur Topologie, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, Göttingen, pp. 67, 1848.
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Category:19th-century German mathematicians
Category:Scientists from Frankfurt
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
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