1831-1916

German Mathematician

Abrilliant mathematician who made significant contributions in set theory, number theory, and mathematical induction, Julius Dedekind was also well known as the editor of the collected works of Peter Dirichlet (1805-1859), Carl Gauss (1777-1855), and Georg Riemann (1826-1866). Dedekind is the father of the "Dedekind cut," a method of representing rational numbers in terms of division into two sets by "cutting" the set of rational numbers with a single real number of value "r."

Dedekind was born in the duchy of Braunschweig, now part of Germany. He was the son of a professor at the Collegium Carolinum, and his mother was the daughter of another professor at Carolinum.

Dedekind's first interest in school was physics, not mathematics. However, the relative lack of rigor and logical structure in physics left him unsatisfied and he quickly turned to mathematics. He entered...