1837-1912

German mathematician who was a major contributor to the field of invariant theory. He collaborated with Rudolf Clebsch on both invariant theory and algebraic geometry, and also developed proofs demonstrating that the numbers e and π are transcendent numbers, numbers that are not the root of any algebraic equation with rational coefficients. A strict mathematical logician, Gordan commented that David Hilbert's less formal approach to mathematics was "not mathematics, it is theology."