VI.66 Ivar Fredholm

b. Stockholm, 1866; d. Stockholm, 1927

Professor of Mechanics and Mathematical Physics, Stockholm (1906-27)


In papers of 1900 and 1903 Fredholm solved the integral equations named after him,

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with a continuous “kernel” K and unknown ϕ(x), by analogy with infinite systems of linear equations and generalized determinants. Both the solution and several ideas attached to it (“Fredholm alternatives”) made this work an important stimulus for HILBERT’S [VI.63] theory of integral equations (1904-6) and thus a starting point for functional analysis. (For more about this, see OPERATOR ALGEBRAS [IV.15 §1].) The equations arise in the context of problems of mathematical physics, e.g., in potential theory and in the theory of oscillations. Fredholm considered himself primarily a mathematical physicist, and his colleague Mittag-Leffler tried in vain to have him awarded the Nobel Prize for physics.

 

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