Heinz-Otto Peitgen
Encyclopedia
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....
. Peitgen is one of the most prominent researchers in the study of fractal
Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
s.
Life
Peitgen studied mathematics, physics and economics from 1965 until 1971 in BonnBonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, later working for six years at the Institute for Applied Mathematics at the University of Bonn
University of Bonn
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...
under Christian Fenske, where he received his PhD in 1973. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “Asymptotische Fixpunktsätze und Stabilität” (English: “Asymptotic Fixed-point Theorems and Stability”).
After receiving his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
in 1977, he first taught as a private docent in Bonn before being awarded a professorship in mathematics at the University of Bremen
University of Bremen
The University of Bremen is a university of approximately 23,500 people from 126 countries that are studying, teaching, researching, and working in Bremen, Germany...
. There, he was deeply involved in the establishment and development of an Institute for Dynamical Systems, where in 1982 he set up a computer graphics laboratory for mathematical experiments. Since 1992, Peitgen has served as the founder and director of the Center for Complex Systems and Visualization (Centrum für Complexe Systeme und Visualisierung - CeVis) at the University of Bremen. His research work emphasizes dynamical systems, numerical analysis, image analysis and data analysis, as well as the use of computers in image-based medical diagnostics.
From 1985 until 1991, Peitgen was a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
; since 1991 he has been a professor of mathematics at Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University, also referred to as FAU or Florida Atlantic, is a public, coeducational, research university located in , United States. The university has six satellite campuses located in the Florida cities of Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, Port St. Lucie, and in Fort...
in Boca Raton. In 1995, he founded the Center for Medical Image Computing, MeVis Research GmbH, in Bremen, which became a Fraunhofer Society institute at the beginning of 2009 and is now called the Fraunhofer MEVIS - Institute for Medical Image Computing. Peitgen still manages the institute. In 1997, Peitgen and some of his colleagues founded a new company, MeVis Medical Solutions AG, MMS, which has been listed on the German stock market since 2007. MMS is one of the world’s leading independent producers of software products for image-based medicine, particularly digital radiology. With its software solutions, it provides medical practitioners with substantial added value in screening and diagnostics as well as therapy and intervention planning for cancer, particularly breast cancer, neurology and lung conditions. Peitgen is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
Peitgen has been appointed to chairs at several German and American universities and has served as a visiting professor at universities in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the USA, Mexico and Italy. He is the author of several award-winning books and films that have helped to publicize fractal geometry and chaos theory around the world and is co-editor of several professional journals with an international readership. The scientific disciplines in which he specializes include mathematics, computer science and medicine: dynamical systems, numerical analysis, fractal geometry, chaos theory, computer graphics, image processing, data analysis and IT support for image-based medical diagnostics and treatment.
In 1992, Peitgen was elected as a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2008 as a member of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences.
Awards
2005 Werner Körte Medaille in gold - presented by the German association for surgery (DGCH) for the development of a software visualizationSoftware visualization
Software visualization is the static or animated 2-D or 3-D visual representation of information about software systems based on their structure, size, history, or behavior....
program, which is used by surgeons to understand possible complications and determine improved procedures for complicated liver-surgical interventions.
Selected publications
- Schönheit im Chaos (Frontiers of Chaos), Forschungsgruppe Complexe Dynamik, Universität Bremen, 1985 (with P. H. Richter)
- The Beauty of Fractals, Springer, Heidelberg, 1986 (with P. H. Richter)
- The Science of Fractal Images, Springer Verlag, Tokyo, Springer, New York, 1988 (with D. Saupe)
- Newton's Method and Dynamical Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1989
- Fraktale: Gezähmtes Chaos, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, Themen XLIX, München, 1990 (with H. Jürgens)
- Fractals for the Classroom – Strategic Activities, Vol. 1, Springer-Verlag, New York, and NCTM, 1990 (with H. Jürgens, D. Saupe, E. Maletsky, T. Perciante and L. Yunker)
- Fractals for the Classroom – Part One, Springer-Verlag, New York, and NCTM, 1991 (with H. Jürgens and D. Saupe)
- Fractals for the Classroom – Part Two, Springer-Verlag, New York, and NCTM, 1992 (with H. Jürgens and D. Saupe)
- Fractals for the Classroom – Strategic Activities, Vol. 2, Springer-Verlag, New York, and NCTM, 1992 (with H. Jürgens, D. Saupe, E. Maletsky, T. Perciante and L. Yunker)
- Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science, Springer-Verlag, 1992 (with H. Jürgens and D. Saupe)