- Poul Heegaard
Poul Heegaard (
November 2 ,1871 -February 7 ,1948 ) was a Danishmathematician active in the field oftopology . His 1898 thesis introduced a concept now called theHeegaard splitting of a 3-manifold . Heegaard's ideas allowed him to make a careful critique of work ofHenri Poincaré . Poincaré had overlooked the possibility of the appearance oftorsion in the homology groups of a space.He later co-authored, with
Max Dehn , a foundational article oncombinatorial topology , in the form of an encyclopedia entry.Heegaard studied mathematics at the
University of Copenhagen , from 1889 to 1893 and following years of travelling, and teaching mathematics, he was appointed professor at University of Copenhagen in 1910.Following a dispute with the faculty over, among other things, the hiring of
Harald Bohr asprofessor at the University (Heegaard was against it); Heegaard accepted a professorship at Kristianssand inNorway , where he worked till his retirement in 1941.External links
*MacTutor Biography|id=Heegaard
* [http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~hjm/heegaard.html"Heegaard home page"]
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