Niels Henrik Abel
Also known as Niels Abel, Abel, Niels Henrik, N. H. Abel, Abel, Henry Abel
Norwegian mathematician (1802–1829)
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Niels Henrik Abel was a Norwegian mathematician who lived a short life from 1802 to 1829 but made groundbreaking contributions to mathematics, particularly in algebra and analysis. His work, including important discoveries about equations and functions, had a lasting impact on mathematics and continues to be recognized through awards and theorems named after him.
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Quotes
- “The mathematicians have been very much absorbed with finding the general solution of algebraic equations, and several of them have tried to prove the impossibility of it. However, if I am not mistaken, they have not as yet succeeded. I therefore dare hope that the mathematicians will receive this memoir with good will, for its purpose is to fill this gap in the theory of algebraic equations.”
- “On the whole, Divergant series are the work of the Devil and it's a Shame that one dares base any Demonstration on them. You can get whatever result you want when you use them, and they have given rise to so many Disasters and so many Paradoxes. Can anything more horrible be conceived than to have the following oozing out of you:0 = 1 - 2n + 3n - 4n + etc.where n is a whole Number? Risum teneatis amici. [Laughter retains friends]”
- “It is readily seen that any theory written by Laplace will be superior to all produced of lower standing. It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils.”
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Article
Niels Henrik Abel (/ˈɑːbəl/ AH-bəl, Norwegian: [ˌnɪls ˈhɛ̀nːɾɪk ˈɑ̀ːbl̩]; 5 August 1802 – 6 April 1829) was a Norwegian mathematician who made pioneering contributions in a variety of fields. His most famous single result is the first complete proof demonstrating the impossibility of solving the general quintic equation in radicals. This question was one of the outstanding open problems of his day, and had been unresolved for over 250 years. He was also an innovator in the field of elliptic functions and the discoverer of Abelian functions. He made his discoveries while living in poverty and died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis.
Most of his work was done in six or seven years of his working life. Regarding Abel, the French mathematician Charles Hermite said: "Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for five hundred years." Another French mathematician, Adrien-Marie Legendre, said: "What a head the young Norwegian has!"