Kurt Hensel
{{Short description|German mathematician (1861–1941)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Kurt Hensel
|birth_name=Kurt Wilhelm Sebastian Hensel
| image = Hensel_Kurt.jpg
| image_size = 225px
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1861|12|29|df=y}}
| birth_place = Königsberg, Prussia
| death_date = {{death date and age|1941|06|01|1861|12|29|df=y}}
| death_place = Marburg, Germany
| residence =
| citizenship =
| nationality = German
| ethnicity =
| field = Mathematics
| work_institution =
| alma_mater = University of Bonn
University of Berlin
| doctoral_advisor = Leopold Kronecker
| doctoral_students = Jessie Forbes Cameron, Abraham Fraenkel, Helmut Hasse, Reinhold Strassmann
| known_for = p-adic number, Hensel's lemma
| author_abbreviation_bot =
| author_abbreviation_zoo =
| prizes =
| parents = Sebastian Hensel
Julia von Adelson
| footnotes =
}}
Kurt Wilhelm Sebastian Hensel (29 December 1861 – 1 June 1941) was a German mathematician born in Königsberg.
Life and career
Hensel was born in Königsberg, Province of Prussia (today Kaliningrad, Russia), the son of Julia (née von Adelson) and landowner and entrepreneur Sebastian Hensel. He was the brother of philosopher Paul Hensel. Kurt and Paul's paternal grandparents were painter Wilhelm Hensel and composer Fanny Mendelssohn. Fanny was the sister of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, daughter of Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and granddaughter of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and entrepreneur Daniel Itzig. Both of Hensel's grandmothers and his mother were from Jewish families that had converted to Christianity.
Hensel studied mathematics in Berlin and Bonn, under the mathematicians Leopold Kronecker and Karl Weierstrass.
Later in his life Hensel was a professor at the University of Marburg until 1930. He was also an editor of the mathematical Crelle's Journal. He edited the five-volume collected works of Leopold Kronecker.
Hensel is well known for his introduction of p-adic numbers. First described by him in 1897,{{cite journal | last = Hensel | first = Kurt | title = Über eine neue Begründung der Theorie der algebraischen Zahlen | journal = Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung | volume = 6 | year = 1897 | issue = 3 | pages = 83–88 | url = http://www.digizeitschriften.de/resolveppn/GDZPPN00211612X&L=2}} they became increasingly important in number theory and other fields during the twentieth century.{{cite book | last=Rosen | first=Kenneth H. | title=Elementary Number Theory and Its Applications | publisher=Addison Wesley | publication-place=Boston | edition=fifth | date=2005 | isbn=0-321-23707-2 | chapter=4| page=170}}
Publications
- [https://archive.org/details/theoriederalgebr00hensuoft Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen einer Variabeln und ihre Anwendung auf algebraische Kurven und Abelsche Integrale] (zus. mit Georg Landsberg) Teubner, Leipzig 1902
- Theorie der algebraischen Zahlen Teubner, Leipzig 1908{{cite journal|author=Dickson, L. E.|authorlink=Leonard Eugene Dickson|title=Hensel's Theory of Algebraic Numbers|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1910|volume=17|issue=1|pages=23–36|url=https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1910-17-01/S0002-9904-1910-01993-5/|doi=10.1090/S0002-9904-1910-01993-5|doi-access=free}}
- Zahlentheorie Göschen, Berlin 1913{{cite journal|author=Dickson, L. E.|title=Review: Kurt Hensel, Zahlentheorie|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1914|volume=20|issue=5|pages=258–259|url=https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1914-20-05/S0002-9904-1914-02480-2/|doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1914-02480-2|doi-access=free}}
- ''Gedächtnisrede auf Ernst Eduard Kummer zu dessen 100. Geburtstag[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=umhistmath;cc=umhistmath;idno=acd4271.0007.001;frm=frameset;view=image;seq=10;page=root;size=s Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen]
- [http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=GDZPPN00211612X Über eine neue Begründung der Theorie der algebraischen Zahlen, Jahresbericht DMV, Band 6, 1899]
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category}}
- {{MathGenealogy|id=34268}}
- {{MacTutor Biography|id=Hensel}}
- {{Gutenberg author | id=39757| name=Kurt Hensel}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Kurt Hensel}}
- Helmut Hasse: Kurt Hensel zum Gedächtnis in: [http://www-gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/cgi-bin/digbib.cgi?PPN243919689_0187 Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik 187 (1949)], S. 1-13
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20130109142256/http://users.telenet.be/JoseVerheecke/link/afstamming/Mendelssohn.txt Die Hensel-Familie im Stammbaum der Katzenelnbogen, der Mendelssohns und Bartholdys und ihre Abkömmlinge von 1729 bis ca. 1987]
- {{DNB-Portal|118800337}}
{{Mendelssohn family}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hensel, Kurt}}
Category:Scientists from Königsberg
Category:People from the Province of Prussia
Category:German people of Jewish descent
Category:19th-century German mathematicians
Category:20th-century German mathematicians
Category:German number theorists
Category:University of Bonn alumni