Louis Kollros(7 May 1878 – 19 June 1959) was a Swiss mathematician. From 1909 to 1948 he was a professor ordinarius ofgeometryatETH Zurich.[1]
Biography
editKollros was born on 7 May 1878 inLa Chaux-de-Fonds.Kollros, the son of a baker, was from 1896 as a student of mathematics and physics at theZurich Polytechnikum,where he was a fellow student ofAlbert EinsteinandMarcel Grossmann.[2]After graduating in 1900, Kollros taught mathematics from 1900 to 1909 in secondary school in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds. In 1903–1904 to 1909 he studied in Göttingen withHermann MinkowskiandDavid Hilbert.From 1904 to 1909 Kollross was aprivat-docent(lecturer) at theUniversity of Neuchâtel.He received his doctorate in 1905 from theUniversity of Zurichwith thesis advisor Hermann Minkowski and thesisUn algorithme pour l'approximation simultaneé de deux grandeurs.[3]At ETH Zurich, where Marcel Grossmann taught until 1927 in the same field, Kollross held from 1909 to 1948 the francophone chair ofgéométrie descriptive et de géométrie euclidienne.[1]
In 1940–1941 he was president of theSwiss Mathematical Societyand from 1958 an honorary member of the Society.[4]He was president of theSteiner-Schläflicommittee (tasked with the publication of their works). In this role, he was co-editor of Schläfli's collected works (3 vols.,1950–1956).[1]
He wrote biographies ofÉvariste Galois(1949, 24 p.) and Jakob Steiner (1947, 24 p.), which appeared in the supplements to theElemente der Mathematik(Birkhäuser Verlag).[1]
His doctoral students includeFerdinand Gonseth.
He died on 19 June 1959 inZürich.
Selected publications
edit- Un algorithme pour l'approximation simultaneé de deux grandeurs,Imprimerie Soullier, Geneva 1905
- Géométrie descriptive,Orell Füssli, Zürich 1918
- Cours de géométrie projective,Griffon, Neuchâtel 1946, 108 p.
References
edit- ^abcdStammbach, Urs(31 March 2009)."Kollros, Louis".Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse.
- ^At that time there were parallel lectures in German and French. Kollros attended only the French lectures, as he mentions in his reminiscences published (in connection with a celebration held in Bern) for the 50th anniversary in 1955 of the theory of special relativity. Louis Kollros:Albert Einstein en Suisse: Souvenirs.In:Helvetica Physica Acta.Supplementum 4, 1956, pp. 271-281, and as a German translation:Erinnerungen eines Kommilitonen.In:Carl Seelig(ed.):Helle Zeit – dunkle Zeit: In memoriam Albert Einstein.Europa Verlag, Zürich 1956, pp. 17–31doi:10.1007/978-3-322-84225-1_3
- ^Louis Kollrosat theMathematics Genealogy Project
- ^"Honorary Members of the SMS".