https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip%C3%B3t_Fej%C3%A9r

Lipót Fejér (or Leopold Fejér, Hungarian pronunciation: [%CB%88f%C9%9Bje%CB%90r]; 9 February 1880 – 15 October 1959) was a Hungarian mathematician of Jewish heritage. Fejér was born Leopold Weisz,[1][2][3] and changed to the Hungarian name Fejér[4] around 1900.

Biography
Fejér studied mathematics and physics at the University of Budapest and at the University of Berlin, where he was taught by Hermann Schwarz. In 1902 he earned his doctorate from University of Budapest (today Eötvös Loránd University). From 1902 to 1905 Fejér taught there and from 1905 until 1911 he taught at Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár in Austria-Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca in Romania). In 1911 Fejér was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the University of Budapest and he held that post until his death. He was elected corresponding member (1908), member (1930) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

During his period in the chair at Budapest Fejér led a highly successful Hungarian school of analysis. He was the thesis advisor of mathematicians such as John von Neumann, Paul Erdős, George Pólya and Pál Turán.

Lipót Fejér is buried in Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest.

Fejér's research concentrated on harmonic analysis and, in particular, Fourier series.

Fejér collaborated to produce important papers, one with Carathéodory on entire functions in 1907 and another major work with Frigyes Riesz in 1922 on conformal mappings (specifically, a short proof of the Riemann mapping theorem).

Pólya on Fejér

This section contains too many or overly lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by presenting facts as a neutrally worded summary with appropriate citations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or, for entire works, to Wikisource. (November 2008)
If you could see him in his rather Bohemian attire (which was, I suspect, carefully chosen) you would find him very eccentric. Yet he would not appear so in his natural habitat, in a certain section of Budapest middle-class society, many members of which had the same manners, if not quite the same mannerisms, as Fejér — there he would appear about half eccentric.

— George Pólya, George Pólya, "Some mathematicians I have known", Amer. Math. Monthly 76 (1969), 746–753
Pólya writes the following about Fejér, telling us much about his personality:[5]

He had artistic tastes. He deeply loved music and was a good pianist. He liked a well-turned phrase. 'As to earning a living', he said, 'a professor's salary is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.' Once he was very angry with a colleague who happened to be a topologist, and explaining the case at length he wound up by declaring '... and what he is saying is a topological mapping of the truth'.

He had a quick eye for foibles and miseries; in seemingly dull situations he noticed points that were unexpectedly funny or unexpectedly pathetic. He carefully cultivated his talent of raconteur; when he told, with his characteristic gestures, of the little shortcomings of a certain great mathematician, he was irresistible. The hours spent in continental coffee houses with Fejér discussing mathematics and telling stories are a cherished recollection for many of us. Fejér presented his mathematical remarks with the same verve as his stories, and this may have helped him in winning the lasting interest of so many younger men in his problems.

Lipót Fejér (standing to the right), with Greek mathematician Constantin Carathéodory (1873–1950; left)
In the same article Pólya writes about Fejér's style of mathematics:

Fejér talked about a paper he was about to write up. 'When I write a paper,' he said, 'I have to rederive for myself the rules of differentiation and sometimes even the commutative law of multiplication.' These words stuck in my memory and years later I came to think that they expressed an essential aspect of Fejér's mathematical talent; his love for the intuitively clear detail.

It was not given to him to solve very difficult problems or to build vast conceptual structures. Yet he could perceive the significance, the beauty, and the promise of a rather concrete not too large problem, foresee the possibility of a solution and work at it with intensity. And, when he had found the solution, he kept on working at it with loving care, till each detail became fully transparent.

It is due to such care spent on the elaboration of the solution that Fejér's papers are very clearly written, and easy to read and most of his proofs appear very clear and simple. Yet only the very naive may think that it is easy to write a paper that is easy to read, or that it is a simple thing to point out a significant problem that is capable of a simple solution.

See also
Fejér kernel
Fejér's theorem
References

"Nemzeti Örökség Intézete - Fejér Lipót (1900-ig Weisz Leopold)".

"Fejér Lipót - Névpont 2021".

"Fejér Lipót".

Weiss in German means "white", fejér is archaic spelling in Hungarian for "white". Biography

Pólya, G (1961). "Leopold Fejér". J. London Math. Soc. 36: 501–506. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-36.1.501.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lipót Fejér.
Szegő, Gabor (1960). "Leopold Fejér: In memoriam, 1880-1959". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 66 (5): 346–352. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1960-10441-7. MR 0114742.
Birthplace of Lipót Fejér.
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Lipót Fejér", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews
Lipót Fejér at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

Lipót Fejér's mother was Viktória Goldberger and his father was Samu (or Samuel) Weiss; the family was Jewish. The reader will have noticed that Fejér's father had the name Weiss and, indeed, Lipót Fejér was given the name Leopold Weiss when he was born. He changed his name around 1900 to make himself more Hungarian. This was standard practice carried out at that time to show solidarity with Hungarian culture. Weiss in German means "white" while the Hungarian for white is "feher" but he chose the name "Fejér" which is an archaic spelling for the Hungarian for "White". Let us say a little more about his family. Viktória Goldberger's maternal grandfather Sámuel Nachod was a doctor from Pécs, awarded his medical degree in 1809, while her father, József Goldberger, was an eminent man known as the author of a Hebrew-Hungarian dictionary. Samu Weiss, Lipót's father, was a shopkeeper in Pécs.

http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=7488

Mathematics Genealogy Project

Leopold (Lipót) Fejér

Biography MathSciNet

________________________________________

• Ph.D. Eötvös Loránd University 1902
• Dissertation:
• Advisor: Hermann Amandus Schwarz
• Students:
• Click here to see the students listed in chronological order.
• Name -School =Year $Descendants

1. János Aczél $42
2. Pál Csillag -Eötvös Loránd University
3. Jenö Egerváry -Eötvös Loránd University
4. Paul Erdős -Eötvös Loránd University =1934 $120
5. Michael Fekete -Eötvös Loránd University $326
6. Steven Gaal $33
7. Laszlo Kalmár -Eötvös Loránd University =1926 $11
8. Ferenc Lukács -Eötvös Loránd University
9. George Pólya -Eötvös Loránd University =1912 $1441
10. Tibor Radó -University of Szeged =1922 $707
11. Marcel Riesz -Eötvös Loránd University =1912 $2041
12. Otto Szász -Eötvös Loránd University =1911 $54
13. Gabor Szegő -Universität Wien =1918 $57
14. Simon Szidon -Eötvös Loránd University
15. Pál Turán -Eötvös Loránd University =1935 $59
16. John (Janos) von Neumann -Eötvös Loránd University =1926 $96 According to our current on-line database, Leopold Fejér has 16 students and 4979 descendants.

George Pólya :- Why did Hungary produce so many mathematicians of our time? Many people have asked this question which, I think, nobody can fully answer. There were, however, two factors whose influence on Hungarian mathematics is manifest and undeniable, and one of these was Leopold Fejér, his work, his personality. The other factor was the combination of a competitive examination in mathematics with a periodical.

• Reference: Famous People Throughout History - SmartCopy: Mar 5 2023, 16:57:11 UTC