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Albert Wangerin entered the University of Halle in 1862. From Halle he moved to the University of Königsberg where he studied under Franz Neumann being awarded his doctorate from Königsberg in 1866. It is clear, both from Wangerin's subsequent career, and from his writings, that he was greatly influenced by Franz Neumann. Wangerin would undertake research for the rest of his life on topics suggested by Franz Neumann and Wangerin [1]:-
... later wrote a book (1907) and a highly appreciative article on his former teacher.
Although Jacobi had died over ten years before Wangerin began his studies at Königsberg, his influence was still strongly felt and it would not be unreasonable to say that Wangerin, through his teachers at Königsberg, was strongly influenced by Jacobi's style of mathematics. After he was awarded his doctorate, Wangerin was appointed as a teacher of mathematics in a Gymnasium in Posen. Wangerin moved from Posen to Berlin where again he taught mathematics in a Gymnasium until 1876. In the spring of 1876 he was appointed as an extraordinary professor at the University of Berlin.
Wangerin remained in Berlin until 1882 when he was offered the position of ordinary professor at the University of Halle. Back in the university in which he had studied as an undergraduate, Wangerin held his professorship there until he retired in 1919. He continued to live and do mathematics in Halle after his retirement until his death at age almost 89.
Wangerin's research was on potential theory, spherical functions and differential geometry. He wrote an important two volume treatise on potential theory and spherical functions. Despite great expertise in applications to mathematical physics, research was not the most important of Wangerin's contributions to the development of mathematics.
Wangerin's main contribution was his writing of textbooks, writing for encyclopaedias and his historical writings. As examples of Wangerin's historical writing, in addition to the article on his teacher Franz Neumann which we mentioned above, we should point in particular to the article he wrote on Eduard Heine in 1928 as well as to his input to editing the works of Gauss, Euler, Lambert, and Lagrange. His two major encyclopaedia articles were both written for Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften, the first in 1904 being on functions such as the Lamé and Bessel functions, while his second written in 1907 was for the physics volume of the encyclopaedia and was on optics.
He also played a major role in the reviewing of mathematical papers. As a coeditor of Fortschritte der Mathematik from 1869 to 1921 he had a major influence in the policy of what during that period was the only reviewing journal for mathematics. His influence as a teacher was also strongly felt [1]:-
While at Berlin he directed his lectures to a fairly broad audience, and even at Halle he continued to be greatly interested in the training of high school teachers.
Texto original por: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
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| JOC/EFR May 2000 | School of
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