Oswald Teichmüller | |
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Oswald Teichmüller, unknown date
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Born | Paul Julius Oswald Teichmüller 18 June 1913 Nordhausen, Province of Saxony, German Empire |
Died | 11 September 1943 Poltava, Soviet Union |
(aged 30)
Nationality | German |
Fields | Mathematics |
Alma mater | University of Göttingen (Ph.D) |
Doctoral advisor | Helmut Hasse |
Known for | Teichmüller space |
Paul Julius Oswald Teichmüller (18 June 1913 – 11 September 1943) was a German mathematician who introduced quasiconformal mappings and differential geometric methods into the study of Riemann surfaces. Teichmüller spaces are named after him.
Born in Nordhausen, Teichmüller attended the University of Göttingen, where he graduated in 1935 under the supervision of Helmut Hasse. His doctoral dissertation was on operator theory, though this was his only work on functional analysis. His next few papers were algebraic, but he switched his focus to complex analysis after attending lectures given by Rolf Nevanlinna. In 1937, he moved to Berlin to work with Ludwig Bieberbach. Bieberbach was the editor of Deutsche Mathematik and much of Teichmüller's work was published in the journal, which made his papers hard to find in modern libraries before the release of his collected works.
A member of the NSDAP and Sturmabteilung from 1931, Teichmüller was drafted into the Wehrmacht in July 1939. He took part in the invasion of Norway in 1940 before being recalled to Berlin to undertake cryptographic work with the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. However, after the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943, he gave up his safe position in Berlin to volunteer for combat on the Eastern Front. He was killed in action in September 1943.