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Concept
Ernst Zermelo
Summary
Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo (zɜrˈmɛloʊ, tsɛɐ̯ˈmeːlo; 27 July 1871 21 May 1953) was a German logician and mathematician, whose work has major implications for the foundations of mathematics. He is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory and his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Furthermore, his 1929 work on ranking chess players is the first description of a model for pairwise comparison that continues to have a profound impact on various applied fields utilizing this method.
Ernst Zermelo graduated from Berlin's Luisenstädtisches Gymnasium (now de) in 1889. He then studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the University of Berlin, the University of Halle, and the University of Freiburg. He finished his doctorate in 1894 at the University of Berlin, awarded for a dissertation on the calculus of variations (Untersuchungen zur Variationsrechnung). Zermelo remained at the University of Berlin, where he was appointed assistant to Planck, under whose guidance he began to study hydrodynamics. In 1897, Zermelo went to the University of Göttingen, at that time the leading centre for mathematical research in the world, where he completed his habilitation thesis in 1899.
In 1910, Zermelo left Göttingen upon being appointed to the chair of mathematics at Zurich University, which he resigned in 1916.
He was appointed to an honorary chair at the University of Freiburg in 1926, which he resigned in 1935 because he disapproved of Adolf Hitler's regime. At the end of World War II and at his request, Zermelo was reinstated to his honorary position in Freiburg.
In 1900, in the Paris conference of the International Congress of Mathematicians, David Hilbert challenged the mathematical community with his famous Hilbert's problems, a list of 23 unsolved fundamental questions which mathematicians should attack during the coming century. The first of these, a problem of set theory, was the continuum hypothesis introduced by Cantor in 1878, and in the course of its statement Hilbert mentioned also the need to prove the well-ordering theorem.
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