Mathematician, born in Finnøy, N Norway. He showed mathematical genius by the age of 15, and in 1823 proved that there was no algebraic formula for the solution of a general polynomial equation of the fifth degree. He developed the concept of elliptic functions independently of Carl Gustav Jacobi, and the theory of Abelian integrals and functions became a central theme of later 19th-c analysis.
Niels Henrik Abel|
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| Born |
August 5, 1802 Nedstrand, Norway |
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| Died |
April 6, 1829 Froland, Norway Tuberculosis |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
Niels Henrik Abel (August 5, 1802–April 6, 1829), Norwegian mathematician, was born in Nedstrand, near Finnøy where his father acted as rector. About this time, his father, Søren Georg Abel, a poor Protestant minister, died, and the family was left in straitened circumstances;
Abel's first notable work was a proof of the impossibility of solving the quintic equation by radicals (see Abel-Ruffini theorem.) This investigation was first published in 1824 in abstruse and difficult form, and afterwards (1826) more elaborately in the first volume of Crelle's Journal. From Berlin he passed to Freiberg, and here he made his brilliant researches in the theory of functions: elliptic, hyperelliptic, and a new class now known as abelian functions being particularly intensely studied.
In 1826 Abel moved to Paris, and during a ten-month stay he met the leading mathematicians of France; In early April 1829 Crelle obtained a post for him in Berlin, but the letter bringing the offer did not reach Norway until two days after Abel's death from tuberculosis at Froland Ironworks near Arendal. Under Abel's guidance, the prevailing obscurities of analysis began to be cleared, new fields were entered upon and the study of functions so advanced as to provide mathematicians with numerous ramifications along which progress could be made. The adjective "abelian", derived from his name, has become so commonplace in mathematical writing that it is conventionally spelled with a lower-case initial "a" (see abelian group and abelian category; also abelian variety and Abel transform).
The Abel crater on the Moon was named in his honour.
In 2002, the Abel Prize was established in his honour. June 5, 2002 — Four Norwegian stamps issued in honour of Abel two months before the bicentenary of his birth.
There is a statue of Abel in Oslo.
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