MINKOWSKI'S INAUGURAL- DISSERTATION

MINKOWSKI, HERMANN.

Untersuchungen über Quadratische Formen. I. Bestimmung der Anzahl verschiedener Formern, welche in gegebenes Genus Enthalt (all issued).

Berlin, Uppsala u.Stockholm, Paris, 1885). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Acta Mathematica. Hrsg. von G. Mittag-Leffler", vol. 7, pp.201-258.

First edition of Minkowski's Inaugural-Dissertation in the periodical form.
"Minkowski received his doctorate in 1885 at Königsberg; he taught at Bonn undtil 1894, then returned to Königsberg for two years. In 1896 he went to Zürich.where he was Hurwitz' collegue until 1902; Hilbert then obtained the creation of a new professorship for him at Göttingen, where Minkowski taught until his death. From his Grand Prix paper (1883) to hisd last work Minkowski never ceased to return to the arithmetic of quadratic forms in n ariables ("n-ary Forms"), Ever since Gauss' pioneering work on binary quadratic forms at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the generalization of his results to n-ary had been the goal of many mathematicians, including, Eisenstein, Hermite, Smith, Jordan, and Poincaré."(DSB). - An error in this paper was found and corrected by C.L. Siegel in 1935.

Order-nr.: 39165