Lothar Collatz

Lothar Collatz
Lothar Collatz (Photo courtesy MFO)
Born(1910-07-06)July 6, 1910
DiedSeptember 26, 1990(1990-09-26) (aged 80)
NationalityGerman
EducationUniversity of Greifswald
University of Berlin
Known forCollatz conjecture
Collatz–Wielandt formula
Spectral graph theory
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Berlin
Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Technische Hochschule Hannover
University of Hamburg
Doctoral advisorAlfred Klose
Erhard Schmidt
Doctoral studentsFrank Natterer
Heinz Unger [de]

Lothar Collatz (German: [ˈkɔlaʦ]; July 6, 1910 – September 26, 1990) was a German mathematician, born in Arnsberg, Westphalia.

The "3x + 1" problem is also known as the Collatz conjecture, named after him and still unsolved. The Collatz–Wielandt formula for the Perron–Frobenius eigenvalue of a positive square matrix was also named after him.

Collatz's 1957 paper with Ulrich Sinogowitz,[1] who had been killed in the bombing of Darmstadt in World War II,[2] founded the field of spectral graph theory.

  1. ^ Von Collatz, L. and Sinogowitz, U., 1957, December. Spektren endlicher Grafen. In Abhandlungen aus dem Mathematischen Seminar der Universität Hamburg (vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 63–77). Springer-Verlag.
  2. ^ Mallion, R.B., 2005. An autobiographical account of chemical graph theory in the years surrounding the launch of MATCH: An Oxford participant's highly personal and parochial reminiscence about the period 1969–1976. Match-Communications In Mathematical And In Computer Chemistry, 53(1), pp. 15–52.