Karl Hermann Brunn was a German 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....

, known for his work in convex geometry

Convex geometry

Convex geometry is the branch of geometry studying convex sets, mainly in Euclidean space.Convex sets occur naturally in many areas of mathematics: computational geometry, convex analysis, discrete geometry, functional analysis, geometry of numbers, integral geometry, linear programming,...

 (see Brunn–Minkowski inequality) and in knot theory

Knot theory

In topology, knot theory is the study of mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life in shoelaces and rope, a mathematician's knot differs in that the ends are joined together so that it cannot be undone. In precise mathematical language, a knot is an embedding of a...

 (see Brunnian links).

Life and work

Hermann Brunn was born in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, and grew up in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. He studied mathematics and physics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, graduating in 1887 with the thesis Ueber Ovale und Eiflachen (About ovals and eggforms). He habilitated in 1889.