# Carl Neumann

Carl Neumann
Born 7 May 1832
Königsberg, Prussia
Died 27 March 1925 (aged 92)
Leipzig
Nationality German
Fields integral equations
Institutions University of Halle-Wittenberg
University of Basel
University of Tübingen
University of Leipzig.
Alma mater Königsberg University
Halle
Doctoral advisor Friedrich Richelot and Otto Hesse
Doctoral students William Edward Story
Known for Dirichlet problem
Neumann series

Carl Gottfried Neumann (7 May 1832 – 27 March 1925), also Karl Gottfried Neumann, was a German mathematician.

Neumann was born in Königsberg, Prussia, as the son of the mineralogist, physicist and mathematician Franz Ernst Neumann (1798-1895), who was professor of mineralogy and physics at Königsberg University. Carl Neumann studied in Königsberg and Halle and was a professor at the universities of Halle, Basel, Tübingen, and Leipzig.

Neumann worked on the Dirichlet principle, and can be considered one of the initiators of the theory of integral equations. The Neumann series, which is analogous to the geometric series

$\frac{1}{1-x} = 1 + x + x^2 + \cdots$

but for infinite matrices, is named after him.

Together with Alfred Clebsch Neumann founded the mathematical research journal Mathematische Annalen. He died in Leipzig.

The Neumann boundary condition for certain types of ordinary and partial differential equations is named after him (Cheng and Cheng, 2005).

Carl Gottfried Neumann, 1912

## References

• .
• Carl Neumann at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Cheng, A. and D. T. Cheng (2005). Heritage and early history of the boundary element method, Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements, 29, 268–302.