Elwin Bruno Christoffel

Elwin Bruno Christoffel (kʁɪˈstɔfl̩; 10 November 1829 – 15 March 1900) was a German mathematician and physicist. He introduced fundamental concepts of differential geometry, opening the way for the development of tensor calculus, which would later provide the mathematical basis for general relativity. Christoffel was born on 10 November 1829 in Montjoie (now Monschau) in Prussia in a family of cloth merchants. He was initially educated at home in languages and mathematics, then attended the Jesuit Gymnasium and the Friedrich-Wilhelms Gymnasium in Cologne. In 1850 he went to the University of Berlin, where he studied mathematics with Gustav Dirichlet (which had a strong influence over him) among others, as well as attending courses in physics and chemistry. He received his doctorate in Berlin in 1856 for a thesis on the motion of electricity in homogeneous bodies written under the supervision of Martin Ohm, Ernst Kummer and Heinrich Gustav Magnus. After receiving his doctorate, Christoffel returned to Montjoie where he spent the following three years in isolation from the academic community. However, he continued to study mathematics (especially mathematical physics) from books by Bernhard Riemann, Dirichlet and Augustin-Louis Cauchy. He also continued his research, publishing two papers in differential geometry. In 1859 Christoffel returned to Berlin, earning his habilitation and becoming a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin. In 1862 he was appointed to a chair at the Polytechnic School in Zürich left vacant by Dedekind. He organised a new institute of mathematics at the young institution (it had been established only seven years earlier) that was highly appreciated. He also continued to publish research, and in 1868 he was elected a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and of the Istituto Lombardo in Milan. In 1869 Christoffel returned to Berlin as a professor at the Gewerbeakademie (now part of the Technical University of Berlin), with Hermann Schwarz succeeding him in Zürich.