Mathematical Ancestors of Michael Hoffman
The Mathematics
Genealogy Project has enabled just about any mathematician with
a Ph. D. to trace his or her "ancestry" (chain of thesis advisors)
into the eighteenth century and beyond. Things get complicated
as one goes back, since the advisor/student relation was not always
strictly defined and many mathematicians had multiple advisors.
In my own case, I can claim illustrious ancestors through two
"German" lineages (which split at William Story, who had two advisors,
but reunite at the eighteenth century mathematician Abraham Kästner).
But my favorite lineage splits from the second one at Felix Klein,
and includes Leibniz, Lagrange and my mathematical hero
Leonhard Euler!
First Lineage
- Abraham Kästner begat Johann Mayer (Göttingen, 1773)
- Johann Mayer begat Enno Dirksen (Göttingen, 1820, Historiae
progresuum instrumentorum mensurae angulorum...)
- Enno Dirksen begat Karl Jacobi
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 1825,
Disquisitiones analyticae de fractionibus simplicibus)
- Karl Jacobi begat Friedrich Richelot
(Königsberg, 1831, De resolutione algebraica
aequationes X257=1, sive de divisione circuli per bisectionem anguli
septies repetitam in partes 257 inter se aequales commentario coronata
)
- Friedrich Richelot begat Carl Neumann (Köningsberg,
1856, De problemate quodam mechanico, quod ad primam classem integralium
ultraellipticorum revocatur)
- Carl Neumann begat William E. Story (Leipzig, 1875,
On the Algebraic Relations Existing Between the Polars of a Binary
Quantic)
- William E. Story begat Solomon Lefschetz
(Clark, 1911, On the Existence of Loci with Given Singularities)
- Solomon Lefschetz begat
Norman E. Steenrod (Princeton, 1936,
Universal Homology Groups)
- Norman E. Steenrod begat Franklin P.
Peterson (Princeton, 1955, Generalized Cohomotopy Groups)
- Franklin P. Peterson begat Michael E. Hoffman (M.I.T., 1981, Cohomology
Endomorphisms of Complex Flag Manifolds)
Second Lineage
- Abraham Kästner begat Johann Pfaff (Göttingen, 1786,
Commentario de ortibus et occasibus siderum apud auctores classicos
commemoratis)
- Johann Pfaff begat Carl Friedrich Gauss (Helmstedt, 1799, Demonstratio
nova theorematis omnem functionem algebraicam rationalem integram unius
variabilis in factores reales primi vel secundi gradus resolvi posse)
- Carl Friedrich Gauss begat Christian Gerling (Göttingen, 1812,
Methodi proiectionis orthographicae usum ad caculos parallacticos
facilitandos explicavit simulque eclipsin solarem die)
- Christian Gerling begat Julius Plücker (Marburg, 1823, Generalum
analyeseos applicationem ad ea quae geometriae altioris et mechanicae
basis et fundamenta sunt e serie Tayloria deducit)
- Julius Plücker begat Felix Klein (Bonn, 1868, Über die
Transformation de allgemeinen Gleichung des zweiten Grades zwischen
Linien-Koordinaten auf eine kanonische Form)
- Felix Klein begat William E. Story (Leipzig, 1875,
On the Algebraic Relations Existing Between the Polars of a Binary
Quantic)
- William E. Story begat Solomon Lefschetz
(Clark, 1911, On the Existence of Loci with Given Singularities)
- Solomon Lefschetz begat
Norman E. Steenrod (Princeton, 1936,
Universal Homology Groups)
- Norman E. Steenrod begat Franklin P.
Peterson (Princeton, 1955, Generalized Cohomotopy Groups)
- Franklin P. Peterson begat Michael E. Hoffman (M.I.T., 1981, Cohomology
Endomorphisms of Complex Flag Manifolds)
Third Lineage
- Erhard Weigel begat Gottfried Leibniz (Altdorf, 1666, Disputatio
inauguralis de casibus perplexis in jure)
- Gottfried Leibniz begat Nicolas Malebranche
- Nicolas Malebranche begat Jacob Bernoulli (Basel, 1684, Solutionem
tergemini problematis arithmetici, geometrici et astronomici)
- Jacob Bernoulli begat Johann Bernoulli (Basel, 1690, Dissertatio
de effervescentia et fermentatione)
- Johann Bernoulli begat Leonhard Euler
(Basel, 1726, Dissertatio physica de sono)
- Leonhard Euler begat Joseph Louis Lagrange
(no degree)
- Joseph Louis Lagrange begat Simeon Poisson (École Polytechnique,
1800)
- Simeon Poisson begat Gustav Dirichlet (Bonn, 1827)
- Gustav Dirichlet begat Rudolf Lipschitz (Universität Berlin, 1853,
Determinatio status magnetici viribus inducentibus commoti in ellipsoide
)
- Rudolf Lipschitz begat Felix Klein (Bonn, 1868, Über die
Transformation de allgemeinen Gleichung des zweiten Grades zwischen
Linien-Koordinaten auf eine kanonische Form)
- Felix Klein begat William E. Story (Leipzig, 1875,
On the Algebraic Relations Existing Between the Polars of a Binary
Quantic)
- William E. Story begat Solomon Lefschetz
(Clark, 1911, On the Existence of Loci with Given Singularities)
- Solomon Lefschetz begat
Norman E. Steenrod (Princeton, 1936,
Universal Homology Groups)
- Norman E. Steenrod begat Franklin P.
Peterson (Princeton, 1955, Generalized Cohomotopy Groups)
- Franklin P. Peterson begat Michael E. Hoffman (M.I.T., 1981, Cohomology
Endomorphisms of Complex Flag Manifolds)
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