Gottingen: a city that lost generations of mathematical geniuses

There are two things that connect the names of famous mathematical geniuses like Gauss, Reimann, Hilbert e noether. One of them is the brilliant scientific contribution that each one generated in their field of mathematics. The other is that they were all professors at the University of Göttingen, in Germany.

Although not a very well-known city these days, Gottingen, a small German university town, was one of the most productive mathematical centers in history for some time.

In this article, we will learn about the history of the rise and decline of this prestigious place of knowledge.

The “fall” of Gottingen

Gottingen's rise in the field of mathematics took several generations, but its "fall" took less than a decade, when its top minds were sent abroad because of the rise of Nazism.

The university's best minds left Germany in the early 1930s, transferring their legacy of mathematical knowledge to North American universities such as Princeton, New York University, among others. By 1943, at least 16 members of Gottingen were already in the United States.

The story of the rise and fall of Mathematics in Gottingen has since been forgotten, but the names associated with this place still appear constantly in the world of Science. His legacies survive today in other mathematical research centers around the world.

The university foundation

The university's history begins more than 250 years ago. In 1734, the King George II, who ruled the United Kingdom and a large area of ​​land in northern Europe, founded a university in Göttingen, Germany.

O enlightenment, political-philosophical movement of Modern age, was in full swing in northern Germany. For example, the mathematician gottfried leibniz developed calculus less than 100 kilometers north of the new university, just 50 years before its founding.

Finding themselves in the midst of the Enlightenment, scientific researchers at the new University of Göttingen had more academic freedom than generations past.

They were promised intellectual autonomy and freedom from religious oversight. They were recruited only to promote knowledge and carry out original research. Student education was also more egalitarian than previously in Europe, as rich and poor were admitted and trained alike.

great mathematicians

At the end of XVIII century, the university in Göttingen was a well-known center of scientific learning in Germany. His enduring mathematical prowess, however, originated with Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Often referred to as the “prince of mathematics”, his research at Göttingen between 1795 and 1855 ranged from algebra to magnetism and astronomy.

Gauss' discoveries were groundbreaking, but the reputation he started in Göttingen only grew when mathematicians from all over Europe flocked to the city.

Bernhard Riemann, the head of mathematics at Göttingen from 1859 to 1866, invented the Riemannian geometry, which paved the way for Einstein's future work on relativity.

Felix Klein, the head of mathematics from 1886 to 1913, was the first to describe the Klein bottle, a three-dimensional object with only one side, similar to the sash of Mobius.

Klein was instrumental in hiring the next generation of mathematicians to Göttingen. This generation included Carl Runge, which helped to invent an essential part of today's most accurate weather forecasting software, the Runge-Kutta team stepper; Hermann Minkowski, who is perhaps best known for his work on relativity; and david hilbert.

The famous Hilbert's 23 Problems, presented in International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900, guided mathematical research for the entire XNUMXth century.

During his career as professor and head of the mathematics department at Göttingen, he mentored an astounding 76 doctoral students, many of whom went on to make their own discoveries.

The scientific exodus

After Gauss' appointment at the university until the early 1930s, Göttingen's mathematical prowess survived in an environment of constant political turmoil, including the Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian War and First World War.

But the wave of nationalism that accompanied the Nazis' rise to power in the early 1930s transformed Göttingen. The 1933 Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service made it illegal for any non-Aryans, specifically Jews, to serve as a teacher or professor in Germany.

In response to this and other anti-Semitic laws, Jewish academics, professors with Jewish connections, and anyone who opposed Nazism fled Germany.

Emmy Noether, who had been the first mathematics teacher at Göttingen and was described by Einstein as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, left in 1933 to teach at the Bryn Mawr College.

Richard Courant left in 1933 to help found the best institute of applied mathematics in the US at New York University.

Hermann Weyl, who had been named Hilbert's successor as head of mathematics at Göttingen, moved to Princeton, where he helped transform the Institute for Advanced Studies into a search power.

Hilbert was asked in 1934 by the science minister under the Nazi regime whether mathematics in Göttingen had suffered from the departure of Jews and friends of Jews.

The mathematician replied: “Have you suffered? He didn't suffer, Minister. Do not exist anymore! “Hilbert was right. Only one of the pre-Nazi university professors remained until 1934.

The center of mathematics changed rapidly during the Nazi era and in the midst of World War II. Courant, Weyl and others helped move it to the UK and the US, where most of the top-ranked math programs are located today.

The mathematical heritage of these countries originates in Göttingen. In some ways, the scientific history of these places of teaching and research remains the story of the continuation of Gottingen.