- Erich Kähler
Erich Kähler (
16 January 1906 -31 May 2000 ) was a Germanmathematician with wide-ranging geometrical interests.Kähler was born in
Leipzig , and studied there. He received his Ph.D. in 1928 from theUniversity of Leipzig . He held professorial positions inKönigsberg , Leipzig,Berlin andHamburg . Later in life he became interested in general philosophical issues.As a mathematician he is known for a number of contributions: the
Cartan-Kähler theorem onsingular solution s of non-linear analytic differential systems; the idea of aKähler metric oncomplex manifold s; and theKähler differentials , which provide a purely algebraic theory and have generally been adopted inalgebraic geometry . In all of these the theory ofdifferential form s plays a part, and Kähler counts as a major developer of the theory from its formal genesis withÉlie Cartan .Kähler manifold s —complex manifold s endowed with aRiemannian metric and asymplectic form so that the three structures are mutually compatible — are named after him.The
K3 surface is named after Kummer, Kähler, and Kodaira.His earlier work was on
celestial mechanics ; and he was one of the forerunners of scheme theory, though his ideas on that were never widely adopted.References
* [http://www.worldwhoswho.com/views/entry.html?id=kah-0033 KÄHLER, Erich Ernst] International Who's Who. accessed
September 3 ,2006 .
*
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