1885-1955

German-American Mathematician

Hermann Weyl served as a link between an older generation of mathematicians, dominated by David Hilbert (1862-1943) and others at the University of Göttingen, and the world of refugees from Nazism who fled to America and there helped establish the world of the future. His mathematical work concerned a variety of topics, ranging from the most purely philosophical pursuits in the foundations of the discipline to highly practical applications in physics. Many scholars consider Weyl among the immortals of twentieth-century mathematics.

Born on November 9, 1885, in the town of Elmshorn near Hamburg, Weyl was the son of a bank clerk, Ludwig, whose wife Anna Dieck had come from a wealthy family. While studying in the gymnasium at Altona, Weyl's abilities caught the attention of a headmaster who was related to Hilbert. He went on to study with the latter...