Moritz Abraham Stern | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1807-06-29)29 June 1807 |
| Died | 30 January 1894(1894-01-30) (aged 86) |
| Known for | Stern's diatomic sequence Stern primes Stern–Brocot tree |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | University of Göttingen |
| Doctoral advisor | Bernhard Friedrich Thibaut Carl Friedrich Gauss |
| Notable students | Bernhard Riemann Ferdinand Eisenstein |
Moritz Abraham Stern (29 June 1807 – 30 January 1894) was a German mathematician. Stern becameOrdinarius (full professor) atGöttingen University in 1858, succeedingCarl Friedrich Gauss. Stern was the firstJewish full professor at a German university who attained the position without changing his Jewish religion.[1] AlthoughCarl Gustav Jacobi preceded him (by three decades) as the first Jew to obtain a math professorial chair in Germany, Jacobi's family had converted to Christianity long before then.
As a professor, Stern taught Gauss's studentBernhard Riemann. Stern was very helpful toGotthold Eisenstein in formulating a proof of thequadratic reciprocity theorem. Stern was interested inprimes that cannot be expressed as the sum of a prime and twice a square (now known asStern primes).
He is known for formulatingStern's diatomic series[2]
that counts the number of ways to write a number as a sum of powers of two with no power used more than twice.
He is also known for theStern–Brocot tree, which he wrote about in 1858 and which Brocot independently discovered in 1861.
This article incorporates material from Moritz Stern onPlanetMath, which is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
