Kurt Reidemeister

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Kurt Reidemeister

| image = KurtReidemeister 1930 MFO10199.jpg

| caption = Reidemeister, {{circa}} 1930

| birth_name = Kurt Werner Friedrich Reidemeister

| birth_date = {{birth date |1893|10|13|df=y}}

| birth_place = Braunschweig, German Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age |1971|7|8 |1893|10|13|df=y}}

| death_place = Göttingen, West Germany

| fields = Mathematics

| work_institutions =

| alma_mater = University of Hamburg

| doctoral_advisor = Erich Hecke

| thesis_title = Über die Relativklassenzahl gewisser relativ-quadratischer Zahlkörper

| thesis_url =

| thesis_year = 1921

| doctoral_students = Günter Hotz{{br}}Heiner Zieschang

| known_for =

| spouse = Elisabeth Wagner

}}

Kurt Werner Friedrich Reidemeister (13 October 1893 – 8 July 1971) was a mathematician born in Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany.

Life

File:KurtReidemeister MFO19544cropped.jpg

He was a brother of Marie Neurath.

Beginning in 1912, he studied in Freiburg, Munich, Marburg, and Göttingen. In 1920, he got the {{lang|de|Staatsexamen}} (master's degree) in mathematics, philosophy, physics, chemistry, and geology.

He received his doctorate in 1921 with a thesis in algebraic number theory at the University of Hamburg under the supervision of Erich Hecke.{{MacTutor Biography|id=Reidemeister}}{{cite journal | author=Rafael Artzy | title=Kurt Reidemeister 13.10.1893 — 8.7.1971 | journal=Jber. DMV | volume=74 | url=http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/index.php?id=11&PPN=PPN37721857X_0074&DMDID=DMDLOG_0010&L=1 | pages=96–104 | year=1972 |language=de}}{{cite journal | author=Friedrich Bachmann and Heinrich Behnke and Wolfgang Franz | title=In memorian Kurt Reidemeister | journal=Math. Ann. | volume=199 | number=1 | pages=1–11 | url=https://www.uni-marburg.de/fb12/historie/biographisches/reidemeister-nachruf.pdf | year=1972 |language=de | doi=10.1007/bf01419571| s2cid=122203410 }}

He became interested in differential geometry; he edited Wilhelm Blaschke's second volume on the topic,Wilhelm Blaschke, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=umhistmath;idno=ABN4015 Vorlesungen über Differentialgeometrie], Springer, Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, 1921-1929, vol. 2: Affine Differentialgeometrie and both made an acclaimed contribution to the Jena DMV conference in September 1921.[http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/index.php?id=resolveppn&PPN=PPN37721857X_0030 Jahresversammlung in Jena vom 18.—25. September 1921], Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, vol.30, p.27-28, 1921{{cite journal | author=W. Blaschke and K. Reidemeister | title=Über die Entwicklung der Affingeometrie | journal=Jahresbericht DMV | volume=31 | pages=63–81 | url=http://www.digizeitschriften.de/download/PPN37721857X_0031/log13.pdf | year=1922 }}

In October 1922 or 1923 he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Vienna. While there he became familiar with the work of Wilhelm Wirtinger on knot theory, and became closely connected to Hans Hahn and the Vienna Circle. Its 1929 manifesto lists one of Reidemeister's publications{{cite journal | author=Kurt Reidemeister | title=Exaktes Denken | journal=Philosophischer Anzeiger | volume=3 | pages=15–47 | year=1928 }} in a bibliography of closely related authors.

In 1925 he became a full professor at the University of Königsberg; he stayed until 1933, when he was regarded politically unsound by the Nazis and dismissed from his position. Whilst there he organised the Second Conference on the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences in conjunction with journal Erkenntnis.{{cite book |last1=Stadler |first1=Friedrich |title=The Vienna Circle: Studies in the Origins, Development, and Influence of Logical Empiricism |date=2015 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319165615 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2rAlCQAAQBAJ&q=Erkenntnis+1930+Konigsberg&pg=PA161 |language=en}}

Blaschke managed to get a promise about Reidemeister's reappointment, and in autumn 1934 he got the chair of Kurt Hensel at the University of Marburg. He stayed there, except for a visit to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in 1948–1950, until he got appointed to Göttingen University in 1955, where he stayed until his emeritation.

Works

Reidemeister's interests were mainly in combinatorial group theory, combinatorial topology, geometric group theory, and the foundations of geometry. His works include Knoten und Gruppen (1926), Einführung in die kombinatorische Topologie (1932), and Knotentheorie (1932). He co-edited the journal Mathematische Annalen from 1947 until 1963.[http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=PPN235181684_0274&DMDID=DMDLOG_0002 Title page] of vol.274 (1986)

He was also a philosopher. His book "Das exakte Denken der Griechen" (1949) is not as well known as his mathematical work. In it he remarks that mathematical thought is "just the beginning of thought".