Beno Eckmann

Curriculum vitae

( Extracted from : "Beno Eckmann Selecta" Springer-Verlag, 1987.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born March 31, 1917 in Bern, Switzerland

Schools in Bern, Gymnasium (Latin-Greek),diploma (Maturität) 1935

Student, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH) 1935-39,

diploma (Master's degree) in Mathematics 1939

Assistant, ETH 1939-42

Dr. sc. math. (Ph. D.), ETH 1941, with Kern prize and silver medal

Lecturer, then Associate Professor, Université de Lausanne 1942-48

Privatdozent, ETH 1942

Professor of Mathematics, ETH 1948

Professor Emeritus 1984

Member, Institute for advanced Study Princeton: January- September 1947

summer 1951, spring 1952

Visiting Professor: University of Michigan summer 1950, University of Illinois

winter 1952, University of Carolina Berkeley summer 1955, Scuola Normale Superiore

Pisa spring 1958, Università di Roma winter 1966, University of Washington summer 1970

and others.

Secretary, International Mathematical Union 1956-61

President, Swiss Mathematical Society 1961-62

Head, Mathematics Research Institute ETH 1964-84

Member of Research Council, Swiss National Science Foundation, 1973-84

Honorary doctor's degrees: Université de Fribourg 1964, Ecole Polytechnique

Fédérale Lausanne 1969, Israel Institute of Technology 1983

Prix Mondial Nessim Habif, Université de Genève 1967

/***************************************************

Death of a gifted mathematician

Category: Switzerland 

George Szpiro
BENO Eckmann
On Tuesday this week is Beno Eckmann, emeritus professor of mathematics at the ETH-Zurich, at the age of 91 years in Hugo Mendel Heim died. Eckmann was considered one of the most renowned mathematicians of the 20th Century.
After the death of Beno Eckmann comforting, it seems that his students - he looked over his long career more than 70 doctoral students - his legacy with their own, now more than 1000 pupils and students to students around the world continue with it. Eckmann Founded in 1917 as the son of a biochemist and a medical doctor born in Berne. There he attended the high school, studied Latin, Greek and mathematics. In the latter compartment although he was good, but that he is to the profession would do was not clear. His father advised him, as a mathematician only teachers will join an insurance company, or in the bread-free research could work. Nevertheless, he joined in autumn 1935 together with a dozen other physics and Mathematikstudendenten studying at the ETH in.
Men of international reputation - among them Michel Plancherel, George Polya, the logician Paul Bernays, who later became a Nobel Laureate in Physics Wolfgang Pauli, and especially Hans-Heinz Hopf, the leading spirit in the then still relatively young field of topology - were his teachers. For Hopf Eckmann wrote his doctoral thesis, even measured against the high demands of the ETH was excellent and with a Prize.
As a lecturer in the U.S.
In 1942 Eckmann as extraordinary professor at the University of Lausanne. As an artillery observer made the young lecturer during the Second World War in the Valais Alps active service. Two weeks of lectures alternated with two weeks from military service. After the war, followed by two visits of the famous Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, where he was a huge advance over the guild - among others Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann - met. After his return was Eckmann 1948 a full professorship at the ETH Zurich, which he accepted, and until his retirement in 1984 maintained.
In his research examined Eckmann repeatedly applications of its earlier results to new mathematical problems. This is the word "application"
However, with a generous pinch of salt to enjoy, because Eckmann understands this term no "practical" application. A researcher should never be on the solution of everyday problems - for example in the engineering sciences - focus, said Eckmann. Often appeared in later and totally unexpected applications, but for a research mathematician should the relevance of his inquiries never represent a guideline. An entirely theoretical investigation which Eckmann published in 1954, was about 50 years later to his own amazement of an application in economics.
Global Relations
Eckmann shied never even administrative tasks. Among other things, he served 1961-62 as president of the Swiss Mathematical Society, 1956 to 1961 as Secretary ¬ General of the International Mathematical Association and for 20 years from 1964 to 1984 as director, which he founded the Research Institute for Mathematics at the ETH.
As a member of the Jewish community in Zurich, he felt the universities in Israel very much and was a member of the support companies of the Hebrew University, the Technion, the University in Beersheva in 1983, he was from the Technion in Haifa appointed an honorary doctorate. He maintained close ties to the mathematical research in Barcelona, Vancouver and Columbus in Ohio.