Richard Courant

Mathematician, born in Lubliniec, S Poland (formerly Lublinitz, Germany). He studied at Wroc?aw, Poland (formerly Breslau, Prussia), Zürich, and (as a pupil of David Hilbert) Göttingen universities, where he became professor in 1920, founding the Mathematics Institute in 1929. In 1933 he was forced by the Nazis to retire, and after a year at Cambridge he went to the USA, where he became professor at New York University (1934–58), and director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (later the Courant Research Institute) (1953–8). He worked in applied analysis, particularly in partial differential equations and the Dirichlet problem.

Richard Courant (born January 8, 1888 in Lublinitz, Silesia, Germany, today Poland, died January 27, 1972 in New York/USA) was a German and American mathematician.

During his youth, his parents had to move quite often, to Glatz, Breslau, and in 1905 to Berlin. There he founded the Mathematical Institute, which he headed as director from 1928 until 1933.

Courant left Germany in 1933, earlier than many of his colleagues. While he was classified as a Jew by the Nazis, his having served as a front-line soldier exempted him from losing his position for this particular reason at the time; After one year in Cambridge, he went to New York where he became a professor at the New York University in 1936. He was given the task of founding an institute for graduate studies in mathematics, a task which he carried out very successfully. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (as it was renamed in 1964) continues to be one of the most respected research centers in applied mathematics.

Apart from his outstanding organizational talent, Courant is well remembered for his mathematical achievements. He authored the very influential textbook Methods of Mathematical Physics, which is still widely used more than eighty years after it was written. Courant gave this a solid mathematical basis.