基本説明
Hermann Grassmann whose career was spent as a high-school teacher in Stettin is known as the founder of n-dimensional vector algebra as well as for his lasting contributions to physics and linguistics. Ignored by his contemporaries, his
remarkable work is now recognized to have been that of a pioneer. The biography goes into detail of the complex network of internal and external factors that shaped Grassmann’s development.
Full Description
Hermann Günther Graßmann was one of the most remarkable personalities in 19th-century science. A "small-town genius", he developed a groundbreaking n-dimensional algebra of space and contributed to a revolution in the understanding of mathematics. His work fascinated great mathematicians such as W. R. Hamilton, J. W. Gibbs and A. N. Whitehead. This intellectual biography traces Graßmann's steps towards scientific brilliance by untangling a complicated web of influences: the force of unsolved problems in mathematics, Friedrich Schleiermacher's Dialectic, German Romanticism and life in 19th-century Prussia. The book also introduces the reader to the details of Graßmann's mathematical work without neglecting his achievements in Sanskrit philology and physics. And, for the first time, it makes many original sources accessible to the English-language reader.
Contents
Graßmann's life.- Graßmann's sources of inspiration.- Hermann Günther Graßmann's contributions to the development of mathematics and their place in the history of mathematics.- The genesis and essence of Hermann Günther Graßmann's philosophical views in the Extension Theory of 1844.
