Hans Freudenthal
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. He made substantial contributions to algebraic topology
Algebraic topology
Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...
and also took an interest in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and mathematics education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
.
Freudenthal was born in Luckenwalde
Luckenwalde
Luckenwalde is the capital of the Teltow-Fläming district in the German state of Brandenburg. It is situated on the Nuthe river north of the Fläming Heath, at the eastern rim of the Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park, about south of Berlin...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
into a Jewish family and completed his thesis work with Heinz Hopf
Heinz Hopf
Heinz Hopf was a German mathematician born in Gräbschen, Germany . He attended Dr. Karl Mittelhaus' higher boys' school from 1901 to 1904, and then entered the König-Wilhelm- Gymnasium in Breslau. He showed mathematical talent from an early age...
at the University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
, and defended a thesis on the ends of topological group
Topological group
In mathematics, a topological group is a group G together with a topology on G such that the group's binary operation and the group's inverse function are continuous functions with respect to the topology. A topological group is a mathematical object with both an algebraic structure and a...
s in 1930. He was officially awarded a degree in October 1931. He then went to Amsterdam to serve as assistant to Brouwer
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer FRS , usually cited as L. E. J. Brouwer but known to his friends as Bertus, was a Dutch mathematician and philosopher, a graduate of the University of Amsterdam, who worked in topology, set theory, measure theory and complex analysis.-Biography:Early in his career,...
.
In 1937 he proved the Freudenthal suspension theorem
Freudenthal suspension theorem
In mathematics, and specifically in the field of homotopy theory, the Freudenthal suspension theorem is the fundamental result leading to the concept of stabilization of homotopy groups and ultimately to stable homotopy theory. It explains the behavior of simultaneously taking suspensions and...
.
In 1941 Freudenthal was suspended from duties at the University of Amsterdam by the Nazis. His wife, however, was not Jewish, so he was not sent to a concentration camp in eastern Europe but he was deported to a labor camp in the village of Havelte in the Netherlands. At the end of 1944 he was able to escape and join his family in occupied Amsterdam.
Later in his life, Freudenthal focused on elementary mathematics education
Mathematics education
In contemporary education, mathematics education is the practice of teaching and learning mathematics, along with the associated scholarly research....
. In the 1970s, his single-handed intervention prevented the Netherlands from following the worldwide trend of "`new math
New math
New Mathematics or New Math was a brief, dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries, during the 1960s. The name is commonly given to a set of teaching practices introduced in the U.S...
"'. He was also a fervent critic of one of the first international school achievement studies.
In 1971 he founded the IOWO at Utrecht University
Utrecht University
Utrecht University is a university in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. Established March 26, 1636, it had an enrollment of 29,082 students in 2008, and employed 8,614 faculty and staff, 570 of which are full professors....
, which after his death was renamed Freudenthal Institute, the current Freudenthal institute for science and mathematics education
Freudenthal institute for science and mathematics education
The Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education is part of Utrecht University in the Netherlands.The institute is committed to improve Science and Mathematics Education, and it achieves this through research, education, curriculum development and professionalization...
. He was awarded the Gouden Ganzenveer
Gouden Ganzenveer
The Gouden Ganzenveer is a Dutch cultural award initiated in 1955, given annually to a person or organization of great significance to the written and printed word. Recipients are selected by an academy of people from the cultural, political, scientific, and corporate world. Members meet once a...
award in 1984, and died in Utrecht in 1990, sitting on a bench in a park where he always took a morning walk.
See also
- Eduard Jan DijksterhuisEduard Jan DijksterhuisEduard Jan Dijksterhuis was a Dutch historian of science.-Career:He studied mathematics at the University of Groningen from 1911 to 1918 and titled his Ph.D. thesis "A Contributions to the Knowledge of the Flat Helicoid." From 1916 to 1953 he was a professor and taught mathematics, physics and...
- Tatyana Alexeyevna Afanasyeva
- Lincos (language)Lincos (language)Lincos is an artificial language first described in 1960 by Dr. Hans Freudenthal in his book Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part 1. It is a language designed to be understandable by any possible intelligent extraterrestrial life form, for use in interstellar radio transmissions...
: Freudenthal designed a constructed languageConstructed languageA planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
, to make possible communication with Extraterrestrial IntelligenceCommunication with Extraterrestrial IntelligenceCommunication with extraterrestrial intelligence is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that focuses on composing and deciphering messages that could theoretically be understood by another technological civilization. The best-known CETI experiment was the 1974 Arecibo message... - Freudenthal magic squareFreudenthal magic squareIn mathematics, the Freudenthal magic square is a construction relating several Lie groups. It is named after Hans Freudenthal and Jacques Tits, who developed the idea independently. It associates a Lie group to a pair of division algebras A, B...
- Impossible puzzleImpossible PuzzleThe Impossible Puzzle, also named Sum and Product Puzzle is a puzzle called "impossible" because it seems to lack sufficient information for a solution. It was first published in 1969, and the name Impossible Puzzle was coined by Martin Gardner. The puzzle is solvable, though not easily...
- Semisimple Lie algebra