Friedrich Engel (mathematician)

This article is about a German mathematician. For the SS officer, see Friedrich Engel (SS officer). For the philosopher, see Friedrich Engels. For the industrialist, see Friedrich Engelhorn.

Friedrich Engel
Born	(1861-12-26)December 26, 1861 Lugau, Kingdom of Saxony, German Confederation
Died	Giessen, Hessen, Nazi Germany
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Leipzig University of Greifswald University of Giessen
Alma mater	University of Leipzig University of Berlin
Doctoral advisor	Felix Klein
Doctoral students	Abraham Plessner
Known for	Engel group Engel expansion Engel theorem

Friedrich Engel (December 26, 1861 – September 29, 1941) was a German mathematician.

Engel was born in Lugau, Saxony, as the son of a Lutheran pastor. He attended the Universities of both Leipzig and Berlin, before receiving his doctorate from Leipzig in 1883.

Engel studied under Felix Klein at Leipzig, and collaborated with Sophus Lie for much of his life. He worked at Leipzig (1885–1904), Greifswald (1904–1913), and Giessen (1913–1931). He died in Giessen.

Engel was the co-author, with Sophus Lie, of the three volume work Theorie der Transformationsgruppen (publ. 1888-1893; tr., "Theory of transformation groups"). Engel was the editor of the collected works of Sophus Lie with 6 volumes published between 1922 and 1937; the seventh and final volume was prepared for publication but appeared almost twenty years after Engel's death. He was also the editor of the collected works of Hermann Grassmann. Engel translated the works of Nikolai Lobachevski from Russian into German, thus making these works more accessible. With Paul Stäckel he wrote a history of non-Euclidean geometry (Theorie der Parallellinien von Euklid bis auf Gauss, 1895). With his former student Karl Faber, he wrote a book on the theory of partial differential equations of the first order using methods of Lie group theory. In 1910 Engel was the president of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung.

See also

• Engel group
• Engel expansion
• Engel's theorem

External links

• .
• Friedrich Engel at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Literature by and about Friedrich Engel (mathematician) in the German National Library catalogue