Hans Heilbronn facts for kids

Hans Arnold Heilbronn (8 October 1908 – 28 April 1975) was a very smart mathematician. He was born in Germany and later became a citizen of Canada. He made important discoveries in mathematics and taught at famous universities.

His Early Life and Learning

Hans Heilbronn was born into a German-Jewish family. He studied at several universities, including Berlin, Freiburg, and Göttingen. At Göttingen, he met Edmund Landau, who became his professor. Landau helped him with his PhD, which is a high university degree. For his PhD, Hans improved a mathematical idea about the spaces between prime numbers. These spaces are called prime gaps.

Moving to Britain and New Discoveries

In 1933, Hans Heilbronn had to leave Germany because of the rise of Nazism. He moved to Britain. He first arrived in Cambridge, then lived in Manchester, and later worked at Bristol University. He stayed there for about a year and a half.

While at Bristol, he worked on a math idea called the "class number." He also worked with another mathematician, Edward Linfoot. Together, they found out something important about certain types of number fields.

In 1934, he moved back to Manchester for a short time. Then, he accepted a special fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. In Cambridge, Hans Heilbronn wrote several math papers with Harold Davenport. They even created a new math method, sometimes called the Davenport-Heilbronn method.

Serving During World War II

During the Second World War, Hans Heilbronn was briefly held as an "enemy alien." This was because he was from Germany. However, he was soon released so he could serve in the British Army. After the war, in 1946, he returned to Bristol University. He became a professor of mathematics there.

In 1951, he was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honor for scientists in Britain. He was also the president of the London Mathematical Society from 1959 to 1961.

Moving to North America

Hans Heilbronn and his wife moved to North America in 1964. He spent some time at the California Institute of Technology. Then, he moved to Toronto, Canada. From 1964 to 1975, he was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Toronto. He became a Canadian citizen in 1970.

He also taught and guided many students who were getting their PhDs. Some of his students include Inder Chowla, Tom Callahan, and Albrecht Fröhlich.

Today, the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research is named in his honor. This shows how important his work was in mathematics.

See also

• Class number problem
• Deuring–Heilbronn phenomenon
• Heilbronn triangle problem
• Heilbronn set
• Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research
• List of German Canadians