- Thomas Joannes Stieltjes
:"This article is about Thomas Joannes Stieltjes (pronounced 'sti:ltʃəs), the mathematician. For his father, the Dutch engineer and politician, see
Thomas Joannes Stieltjes Snr. "Infobox_Scientist
name = Thomas Joannes Stieltjes
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birth_date = birth date|1856|12|29|mf=y
birth_place =Zwolle ,Netherlands
death_date = death date and age|1894|12|31|1856|12|29|mf=y
death_place =Toulouse ,France
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field =Mathematician
work_institution =University of Leiden
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known_for =Riemann-Stieltjes integral
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footnotes =Thomas Joannes Stieltjes (
December 29 ,1856 –December 31 ,1894 ) was a Dutch mathematician. He was born inZwolle and died inToulouse ,France . He was a pioneer in the field ofmoment problem s and contributed to the study ofcontinued fraction s.The Thomas Stieltjes Institute for Mathematics at the
University of Leiden is named after him, as is theRiemann-Stieltjes integral .Biography
Stieltjes was born in
Zwolle on December 29, 1856. His father (who had the same first names) was acivil engineer andpolitician . Stieltjes Sr. was responsible for the construction of variousharbour s aroundRotterdam , and also sat in theDutch parliament . Stieltjes Jr. went to university at the Polytechnical School inDelft in 1873. Instead of attending lectures, he spent his student years reading the works of Gauss and Jacobi - the consequence of this being he failed his examinations. There were 2 further failures (in 1875 and 1876), and his father despaired. His father was friends withH. G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen (who was the director ofLeiden University , and Stieltjes Jr. was able to get a job as an assistant at Leiden Observatory.Soon afterwards, Stieltjes began a correspondence with
Charles Hermite which lasted for the rest of his life. Stieltjes originally wrote to Hermite concerningcelestial mechanics , but the subject quickly turned to mathematics and he began to devote his spare time to mathematical research.The director of Leiden Observatory, van de Sande-Bakhuyzen, responded quickly to Stieltjes' request on 1 January 1883 to stop his observational work to allow him to work more on mathematical topics. In 1883, he also married his Elizabeth Intveld in May. She also encouraged him to move from astronomy to mathematics. And in September, Stieltjes was asked to substitute at
University of Delft forF J van den Berg . From then until December of that year, he lectured onanalytical geometry and ondescriptive geometry . He resigned his post at the observatory at the end of that year.In 1884, Stieltjes applied for a chair in Groningen. He was, in the end, disappointed, as he was not appointed due to his lack of mathematical qualifications.
Research
Stieltjes worked on almost all branches of analysis,
continued fractions andnumber theory , and for his work, he is sometimes called "the father of the analytic theory of continued fractions".His work is also seen as important as a first step towards the theory of
Hilbert space s. Other important contributions to mathematics that he made involveddiscontinuous function s anddivergent series ,differential equation s,interpolation , thegamma function andelliptic functions .Awards
Stieltjes' work on continued fractions earned him the
Ormoy Prize of theAcadémie des Sciences .ee also
*
Lebesgue-Stieltjes integral
*Laplace-Stieltjes transform
*Riemann-Stieltjes integral
*Stieltjes moment problem
*Chebyshev-Markov-Stieltjes inequalities External links
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* "Œuvres complètes de Thomas Jan Stieltjes, pub. par les soins de la Société mathématique d'Amsterdam." (Groningen: P. Noordhoff, 1914-18) ( [http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AAS8082.0001.001 PDF copy at UMDL] , text in Dutch, French and German)Persondata
NAME= Stieltjes, Thomas Joannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH=December 29 ,1856
PLACE OF BIRTH=Zwolle ,Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH=December 31 ,1894
PLACE OF DEATH=Toulouse ,France
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