Oskar Perron

Oskar Perron
Perron in 1948 Photo courtesy MFO
Born	May 7, 1880(1880-05-07) Frankenthal
Died	February 22, 1975(1975-02-22) (aged 94) Munich
Nationality	Germans
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Heidelberg University of Munich
Alma mater	University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Ferdinand von Lindemann
Doctoral students	Josef Heinhold Helmut Röhrl Hermann Schmidt

Oskar Perron (7 May 1880 – 22 February 1975) was a German mathematician.

He was a professor at the University of Heidelberg from 1914 to 1922 and at the University of Munich from 1922 to 1951. He made numerous contributions to differential equations and partial differential equations, including the Perron method to solve the Dirichlet problem for elliptic partial differential equations. He wrote an encyclopedic book on continued fractions Die Lehre von den Kettenbrüchen. He introduced Perron's paradox:

Let N be the largest integer. If N > 1, then N² > N, contradicting the definition of N. Hence N = 1

to illustrate the danger of assuming that the solution of an optimization problem exists.

See also

• Keller's conjecture
• Perron–Frobenius theorem
• Perron's formula
• Perron method
• Henstock–Kurzweil integral

External links

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Oskar Perron", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Perron.html .
• Oskar Perron at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
• Oskar Perron at Heidelberg University Library