The Most Famous
MATHEMATICIANS from Estonia
This page contains a list of the greatest Estonian Mathematicians. The pantheon dataset contains 1,004 Mathematicians, 2 of which were born in Estonia. This makes Estonia the birth place of the 40th most number of Mathematicians behind Afghanistan, and Slovakia.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Estonian Mathematicians of all time. This list of famous Estonian Mathematicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Erhard Schmidt (1876 - 1959)
With an HPI of 51.09, Erhard Schmidt is the most famous Estonian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 24 different languages on wikipedia.
Erhard Schmidt (13 January 1876 – 6 December 1959) was a Baltic German mathematician whose work significantly influenced the direction of mathematics in the twentieth century. Schmidt was born in Tartu (German: Dorpat), in the Governorate of Livonia (now Estonia).
2. Carl Gustav Axel Harnack (1851 - 1888)
With an HPI of 45.96, Carl Gustav Axel Harnack is the 2nd most famous Estonian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.
Carl Gustav Axel Harnack (7 May [O.S. 25 April] 1851, Dorpat (now Tartu) – 3 April 1888, Dresden) was a Baltic German mathematician who contributed to potential theory. Harnack's inequality applied to harmonic functions. He also worked on the real algebraic geometry of plane curves, proving Harnack's curve theorem for real plane algebraic curves.
3. Hellmuth Kneser (1898 - 1973)
With an HPI of 43.89, Hellmuth Kneser is the 3rd most famous Estonian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Hellmuth Kneser (16 April 1898 – 23 August 1973) was a German mathematician who made notable contributions to group theory and topology. His most famous result may be his theorem on the existence of a prime decomposition for 3-manifolds. His proof originated the concept of normal surface, a fundamental cornerstone of the theory of 3-manifolds. He was born in Dorpat, Russian Empire (now Tartu, Estonia) and died in Tübingen, Germany. He was the son of the mathematician Adolf Kneser and the father of the mathematician Martin Kneser. He assisted Wilhelm Süss in the founding of the Mathematical Research Institute of Oberwolfach and served as the director of the institute from 1958 to 1959. He was an editor of Mathematische Zeitschrift, Archiv der Mathematik and Aequationes Mathematicae. Kneser formulated the problem of non-integer iteration of functions and proved the existence of the entire Abel function of the exponential; on the base of this Abel function, he constructed the functional square root of the exponential function as a half-iteration of the exponential, i.e. a function φ such that φ(φ(z)) = exp(z). Kneser was a student of David Hilbert. He was an advisor of a number of notable mathematicians, including Reinhold Baer. Hellmuth Kneser was a member of the NSDAP and also the SA. In July 1934 he wrote to Ludwig Bieberbach a short note supporting his anti-semitic views and stating: "May God grant German science a unitary, powerful and continued political position."
People
Pantheon has 3 people classified as Estonian mathematicians born between 1851 and 1898. Of these 3, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Estonian mathematicians include Erhard Schmidt, Carl Gustav Axel Harnack, and Hellmuth Kneser. As of April 2024, 1 new Estonian mathematicians have been added to Pantheon including Hellmuth Kneser.
Deceased Estonian Mathematicians
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Erhard Schmidt
1876 - 1959
HPI: 51.09
Carl Gustav Axel Harnack
1851 - 1888
HPI: 45.96
Hellmuth Kneser
1898 - 1973
HPI: 43.89
Newly Added Estonian Mathematicians (2024)
Go to all RankingsOverlapping Lives
Which Mathematicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 3 most globally memorable Mathematicians since 1700.
