Carl ludwig siegel biography for kids

German mathematician (–)

For the German architecture professor, see Carl August Benjamin Siegel.

Carl Ludwig Siegel (31 December – 4 April ) was a German mathematician specialising in analytic number theory.

Carl ludwig siegel biography for kids

He is known for, amongst other things, his contributions to the Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem in Diophantine approximation, Siegel's method,^[1]Siegel's lemma and the Siegel mass formula for quadratic forms. He has been named one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century.^[2][3]

André Weil, without hesitation, named^[4] Siegel as the greatest mathematician of the first half of the 20th century.

Atle Selberg said of Siegel and his work:

He was in some ways, perhaps, the most impressive mathematician I have met. I would say, in a way, devastatingly so. The things that Siegel tended to do were usually things that seemed impossible.

Also after they were done, they still seemed almost impossible.

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