Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet | |
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Born | Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet 13 February 1805 Düren, French Empire |
Died | 5 May 1859 Göttingen, Kingdom of Hanover | (aged 54)
Nationality | German |
Known for | See full list |
Awards | PhD (Hon): University of Bonn (1827) Pour le Mérite (1855) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematician |
Institutions | University of Breslau University of Berlin University of Göttingen |
Thesis | Partial Results on Fermat's Last Theorem, Exponent 5 (1827) |
Academic advisors | Siméon Poisson Joseph Fourier Carl Gauss |
Doctoral students | Gotthold Eisenstein Leopold Kronecker Rudolf Lipschitz Carl Wilhelm Borchardt |
Other notable students | Moritz Cantor Elwin Bruno Christoffel Richard Dedekind Alfred Enneper Eduard Heine Bernhard Riemann Ludwig Schläfli Ludwig von Seidel Wilhelm Weber Julius Weingarten |
Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (/ˌdɪərɪˈkleɪ/;[1] German: [ləˈʒœn diʁiˈkleː];[2] 13 February 1805 – 5 May 1859) was a German mathematician. In number theory, he proved special cases of Fermat's last theorem and created analytic number theory. In analysis, he advanced the theory of Fourier series and was one of the first to give the modern formal definition of a function. In mathematical physics, he studied potential theory, boundary-value problems, and heat diffusion, and hydrodynamics.
Although his surname is Lejeune Dirichlet, he is commonly referred to by his mononym Dirichlet, in particular for results named after him.