Biography:Stefan Bergman

Short description: American mathematician

Stefan Bergman
File:Bergmann Zurich1932.tif Bergman in Zürich, 1932
Born	(1895-05-05)May 5, 1895 Częstochowa, Congress Poland, Russian Empire
Died	June 6, 1977(1977-06-06) (aged 82) Palo Alto, California, USA
Education	University of Vienna University of Berlin
Known for	Bergman kernel Bergman metric Bergman space
Spouse(s)	Adele Adlersberg
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Berlin Tomsk State University MIT Yeshiva University Brown University Stanford University
Thesis	Über die Entwicklung der harmonischen Funktionen der Ebene und des Raumes nach Orthogonalfunktionen (1922)
Doctoral advisor	Richard von Mises
Doctoral students	Michael Maschler

Stefan Bergman (5 May 1895 – 6 June 1977) was a Congress Poland-born American mathematician whose primary work was in complex analysis. He is known for the kernel function he discovered in 1922 at University of Berlin. This function is now known as the Bergman kernel. Bergman taught for many years at Stanford University.

Biography

Born in Częstochowa, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, to a German Jewish family,({{{1}}}, {{{2}}}) Bergman received his Ph.D. at University of Berlin in 1921 for a dissertation on Fourier analysis. His advisor, Richard von Mises, had a strong influence on him, lasting for the rest of his career. In 1933, Bergman was forced to leave his post at the Berlin University because he was a Jew. He fled first to Russia , where he stayed until 1939, and then to Paris. In 1939, he emigrated to the United States , where he would remain for the rest of life. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1951. He was a professor at Stanford University from 1952 until his retirement in 1972. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in 1962 in Stockholm (On meromorphic functions of several complex variables). He died in Palo Alto, California, aged 82.

Bergman Prize

The Stefan Bergman Prize in mathematics was initiated by Bergman's wife in her will, in memory of her husband's work. The American Mathematical Society supports the prize and selects the committee of judges. The prize is awarded for:

1. the theory of the kernel function and its applications in real and complex analysis; or
2. function-theoretic methods in the theory of partial differential equations of elliptic type with a special attention to Bergman's and related operator methods.

Selected publications

• Bergmann, Stefan (1933), "Über die Kernfunktion eines Bereiches und ihr Verhalten am Rande. I" (in de), Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik 1933 (169): 1–42, doi:10.1515/crll.1933.169.1, http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?GDZPPN002172429 .
• Bergmann, Stefan (1934), "Über eine in gewissen Bereichen mit Maximumfläche gültige Integraldarstellung der Funktionen zweier komplexer Variabler: I" (in de), Mathematische Zeitschrift 39: 76–94, doi:10.1007/BF01201345, http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/en/dms/load/img/?IDDOC=17170 .
• Bergmann, Stefan (1935), "Über die Kernfunktion eines Bereiches und ihr Verhalten am Rande. II" (in de), Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik 1935 (172): 89–128, doi:10.1515/crll.1935.172.89, http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?GDZPPN002173093 .
• Bergmann, S. (1935), "Über eine in gewissen Bereichen mit Maximumfläche gültige Integraldarstellung der Funktionen zweier komplexer Variabler: II" (in de), Mathematische Zeitschrift 39: 605–608, doi:10.1007/BF01201376, http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/en/dms/load/img/?IDDOC=17206 
• Bergmann, S. (1936), "Über eine Integraldarstellung von Funktionen zweier komplexer Veränderlichen" (in de), Recueil Mathématique (Matematicheskii Sbornik), New Series 1 (43) (6): 851–862, http://mi.mathnet.ru/eng/msb/v43/i6/p851 
• {{Citation

| last = Bergmann
| first = Stefan
| title = Sur les fonctions orthogonales de plusieurs variables complexes avec les applications à la théorie des fonctions analytiques.
| place = Paris
| publisher = Gauthier-Villars
| series = Mémorial des sciences mathématiques
| volume = 106
| orig-year = 1941
| year = 1947
| edition = 2nd
| pages = 61
| language = fr
| url = http://www.numdam.org/item?id=MSM_1947__106__1_0
| mr = 32776
| zbl = 0036.05101

• Bergmann, Stefan (1948) (in fr), Sur la fonction-noyau d'un domaine et ses applications dans la théorie des transformations pseudo-conformes., Mémorial des sciences mathématiques, 108, Paris: Gauthier-Villars, pp. 80, http://www.numdam.org/item?id=MSM_1948__108__1_0 .
• The Kernel Function and Conformal Mapping, American Mathematical Society 1950, 2nd edn. 1970
• with Menahem Max Schiffer: Kernel Functions and elliptic differential equations in mathematical physics, Academic Press 1953
• with John G. Herriot: Application of the method of the kernel function for solving boundary value problems, Numerische Mathematik 3, 1961
• Integral operators in the theory of linear partial differential equations, Springer 1961, 2nd edn. 1969

See also

• Bergman kernel
• Bergman metric
• Bergman space
• Bergman–Weil integral representation

External links

• Author profile in the database zbMATH