26 Facts About Rolf Nevanlinna

Rolf Herman Nevanlinna was a Finnish mathematician who made significant contributions to complex analysis.

Rolf Nevanlinna began his formal education at the age of 7.

Rolf Nevanlinna was then homeschooled before being sent to a grammar school in 1903 when the family moved to Helsinki, where his father took up a new post as a teacher at Helsinki High School.

At the new school, Rolf Nevanlinna studied French and German in addition to the languages he already spoke: Finnish and Swedish.

Rolf Nevanlinna attended an orchestra school and had a love of music, which was encouraged by his mother:.

Rolf Nevanlinna first met Sibelius's music in 1907, when he heard his Third Symphony.

Rolf Nevanlinna then progressed onto the Helsinki High School, where his main interests were classics and mathematics.

Rolf Nevanlinna was taught by a number of teachers during this time but the best of them all was his own father, who taught him physics and mathematics.

Rolf Nevanlinna graduated in 1913 having performed very well, although he was not the top student of his year.

Rolf Nevanlinna then went beyond the school syllabus in the summer of 1913 when he read Ernst Leonard Lindelof's Introduction to Higher Analysis; from that time on, Nevanlinna had an enthusiastic interest in mathematical analysis.

Rolf Nevanlinna began his studies at the University of Helsinki in 1913, and received his Master of Philosophy in mathematics in 1917.

Lindelof taught at the university and Rolf Nevanlinna was further influenced by him.

Rolf Nevanlinna did however join the White Guard in the Finnish Civil War, but did not see active military action.

In 1919, Rolf Nevanlinna presented his thesis, entitled Uber beschrankte Funktionen die in gegebenen Punkten vorgeschriebene Werte annehmen, to Lindelof, his doctoral advisor.

The thesis, which was on complex analysis, was of high quality and Rolf Nevanlinna was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy on 2 June 1919.

When Rolf Nevanlinna earned his doctorate in 1919, there were no university posts available so he became a school teacher.

From 1947 Rolf Nevanlinna had a chair in the University of Zurich, which he held on a half-time basis after receiving in 1948 a permanent position as one of the 12 salaried Academicians in the newly created Academy of Finland.

Rolf Nevanlinna published in Finnish a book on the foundations of geometry and a semipopular account of the Theory of Relativity.

Rolf Nevanlinna's work was recognised in the form of honorary degrees which he held from the universities of Heidelberg, the University of Bucharest, the University of Giessen, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Glasgow, the University of Uppsala, the University of Istanbul and the University of Jyvaskyla.

Rolf Nevanlinna was an honorary member of several learned societies, among them the London Mathematical Society and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

From 1954, Rolf Nevanlinna chaired the committee which set about the first computer project in Finland.

Rolf Nevanlinna served as President of the International Mathematical Union from 1959 to 1963 and as President of the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1962.

From 1965 to 1970 Rolf Nevanlinna was Chancellor of the University of Turku.

In 1942, a committee was established for the Volunteer Battalion to take care of the battalion's somewhat strained relations with its German commanders, and Rolf Nevanlinna was chosen to be the chairman of the committee, as he was a person respected in Germany but loyal to Finland.

Rolf Nevanlinna stated in his autobiography that he accepted this role due to a "sense of duty".

In 1965, Rolf Nevanlinna was an honorary guest at a function theory congress in Soviet Armenia.