Special Collections

Milton S. Eisenhower Library

The Johns Hopkins University

3400 N. Charles St.

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Weierstrass (Karl) 1815-1897

Lectures (1879)

Ms. 350

Size:                    1 volume

Processed:               April 1993

By                       Ernst Pijning

Provenance:              The manuscript was given to the

                         University by Thomas Craig. 

                         It was transferred to

                         Special Collections, November 1992.

Access:                  Unrestricted

Permission               Permission to publish material from this

                         collection must be requested in writing

                         from the Manuscripts Librarian at the

                         address above.

Citation:                Karl Weierstrass Lectures Ms. 350

                         Special Collections,

                         Milton S. Eisenhower Library,

                         The Johns Hopkins University

                  Weierstrass (Karl) 1815-1897

                         Lectures (1879)

                             Ms. 350

Provenance

The manuscript was given to the University by Thomas Craig.  It was

cataloged in 1917 and shelved in the Stacks; the call number was QA

315 .W4.  It was transferred to Special Collections in November

1992.  The Accession Number is 92-93.11.

Biographical Note

Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass was born in Osterfelde, Westphalia

(Germany) on October 31, 1815.  Weierstrass was regarded as the

most famous mathematician in 19th-century Germany after Carl

Friedrich Gauss and Bernhard Riemann.  He received his education at

the Catholic Gymnasium in Paderborn, the University of Bonn, and he

graduated from the Theological and Philosophical Academy at M?nster

in 1841.

Karl Weierstrass started his professional career by teaching in

Latin schools (Gymnasium).  He spent most of this period teaching

in Braunsberg until 1855.  His university career started in the

following year when the Industry Institute (Berlin) appointed him

as a professor.  In 1857 Karl Weierstrass became professor at the

University of Berlin where he remained until his retirement.  The

University of K”ningsberg awarded him a honorary doctorship in 1854

for his mathematical articles, and in 1856 the Berlin Academy

elected him as a member.

Weierstrass's major contributions to the field of mathematics were

his new elaborations and new applications of the Abelian functions.

Since he was the only professor in Germany teaching these courses

and new theories, he attracted many students and faculty from all

over the country, and his skill in lecturing was later described as

"masterly".  He became dissatisfied with the circulating

transcripts of his lectures and in the way his theories were

applied in textbooks.  Weierstrass began to publish his courses

with the aid of some of his promising students.  Seven volumes of

his lectures were published; five were published after his death

(1897).  (Mathematische Werke, 7 vols. Berlin, 1894-1927) 

Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass died in Berlin February 19, 1897.

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of one bound holographic manuscript titled

"Theorie der Variationsrechnung. Vorlesung gehalten im

Somersemester 1879 von Prof. Dr. C. Weierstrass." (Theory of

variation accounting. Lectures given during the summer semester of

1879 by Prof. dr. C. Weierstrass.)  The manuscript is written in

German and is not translated.  The subject of the lectures,

presented at the University of Berlin, is calculus of variations.

It is likely that this was a copy of the circulating manuscripts of

Weierstrass lectures.  The manuscript was later published in the

series of Weierstrasss's Works: Rudolf Rothe ed., Vorlesungen ?ber

Variationsrechnung von Karl Weierstrass, (Leipzig: Akademische

Verlaggesellschaft M.B.H., 1927). [QA3 .W4]

The manuscript belonged to Thomas Craig (1855-1900). Thomas Craig

was born in Pittston, PA on December 20, 1855.  He graduated from

Lafayette College (1875) with a degree in civil engineering and

received the Ph.D. in mathematics from The Johns Hopkins University

in 1879.  Craig was a student of Hopkins Professor of Mathematics,

James Joseph Sylvester and was later appointed to the faculty.

Craig was appointed Professor of Mathematics in 1892, a position he

held until his death on May 8, 1900.  Thomas Graig published many

articles and books, one of them being a book on linear equations.

It is not clear if Thomas Craig  was a student in the Weierstrass

summer course.  On the title page of the manuscript is the name of

H. [Hugo] Maser, one of the editors of Weierstrass's later

published collective lectures.  Before Weierstrass took

responsibility for the publication of his lectures, circulating

copies were issued by The Mathematical Society of Berlin

University.

Sources:

Bierman, Kurt-R., "Weierstrass, Karl Theodor Wilhelm," in: Charles

     Coulston Gillispe ed., Dictionary of Scientific Biography,

     (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, w.d.), 14:219-224.

Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone eds., Dictionary of American

     Biography, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, w.d.), 2:496.

Rothe, Rudolf ed., Vorlesungen ?ber Variationsrechnung von Karl

     Weierstrass, (Leipzig: Akademische Verlaggesellschaft M.B.H.,

     1927).