1881-1966

Dutch Mathematician

Dutch mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer made two principal contributions to the study of mathematics, though one—his development of a topological principle known as Brouwer's theorem—received far more attention. In the realm of logic, he approached concepts of concern to philosophers as well as to mathematicians. His intuitionist school, though it never became highly influential, challenged the two prevailing schools of thought regarding the nature of mathematical knowledge.

The son of Egbert and Henderika Poutsma Brouwer, the future mathematician was born in Overschie, Holland, on February 27, 1881. He studied at the Haarlem Gymnasium, and in 1897 entered the University of Amsterdam, an institution with which he was to remain connected throughout his career. At the university, he first distinguished himself in 1904, when he was twenty-three years old, with his studies on the properties of four-dimensional space. Also in 1904, Brouwer...