Carl Ludwig Siegel

Carl Ludwig Siegel (31 December 1896 – 4 April 1981) was a German mathematician specialising in
analytic number theory. He is known for, amongst other things, his contributions to the Thue–Siegel–
Roth theorem in Diophantine approximation, Siegel's method,[1] Siegel's lemma and the Siegel mass
formula for quadratic forms. He has been named one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th
century.[2][3]

André Weil, without hesitation, named[4] Siegel as the greatest mathematician of the first half of the 20th
century. Atle Selberg said of Siegel and his work:

He was in some ways, perhaps, the most impressive mathematician I have met. I would say, in
a way, devastatingly so. The things that Siegel tended to do were usually things that seemed
impossible. Also after they were done, they still seemed almost impossible.

Biography
Siegel was born in Berlin, where he enrolled at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1915 as a student in
mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Amongst his teachers were Max Planck and Ferdinand Georg
Frobenius, whose influence made the young Siegel abandon astronomy and turn towards number theory
instead. His best-known student was Jürgen Moser, one of the founders of KAM theory (Kolmogorov–
Arnold–Moser), which lies at the foundations of chaos theory. Other notable students were Kurt Mahler,
the number theorist, and Hel Braun who became one of the few female full professors in mathematics in
Germany.

Siegel was an antimilitarist, and in 1917, during World War I he was committed to a psychiatric institute
as a conscientious objector. According to his own words, he withstood the experience only because of his
support from Edmund Landau, whose father had a clinic in the neighborhood. After the end of World War
I, he enrolled at the University of Göttingen, studying under Landau, who was his doctoral thesis
supervisor (PhD in 1920). He stayed in Göttingen as a teaching and research assistant; many of his
groundbreaking results were published during this period. In 1922, he was appointed professor at the
Goethe University Frankfurt as the successor of Arthur Moritz Schönflies. Siegel, who was deeply
opposed to Nazism, was a close friend of the docents Ernst Hellinger and Max Dehn and used his
influence to help them. This attitude prevented Siegel's appointment as a successor to the chair of
Constantin Carathéodory in Munich.[5] In Frankfurt he took part with Dehn, Hellinger, Paul Epstein, and
others in a seminar on the history of mathematics, which was conducted at the highest level. In the
seminar they read only original sources. Siegel's reminiscences about the time before World War II are in
an essay in his collected works.

In 1936 he was a Plenary Speaker at the ICM in Oslo. In 1938, he returned to Göttingen before
emigrating in 1940 via Norway to the United States, where he joined the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, where he had already spent a sabbatical in 1935. He returned to Göttingen after World War II,
when he accepted a post as professor in 1951, which he
kept until his retirement in 1959. In 1968 he was Carl Ludwig Siegel
elected a foreign associate of the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences.[6]

Career
Siegel's work on number theory, diophantine
equations, and celestial mechanics in particular won
Carl Ludwig Siegel in 1975
him numerous honours. In 1978, he was awarded the
first Wolf Prize in Mathematics, one of the most Born 31 December 1896
prestigious in the field. When the prize committee Berlin, German Empire
decided to select the greatest living mathematician, the Died 4 April 1981 (aged 84)
discussion centered around Siegel and Israel Gelfand Göttingen, West Germany
as the leading candidates. The prize was ultimately Alma mater University of Göttingen
split between them.[7] Known for Brauer–Siegel theorem
Siegel modular form
Siegel's work spans analytic number theory; and his
Siegel modular variety
theorem on the finiteness of the integer points of
Siegel zero
curves, for genus > 1, is historically important as a
Smith–Minkowski–Siegel
major general result on diophantine equations, when
mass formula
the field was essentially undeveloped. He worked on
Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem
L-functions, discovering the (presumed illusory) Siegel
Siegel's theorem on integral
zero phenomenon. His work, derived from the Hardy–
points
Littlewood circle method on quadratic forms, appeared
Siegel domain
in the later, adele group theories encompassing the use
of theta-functions. The Siegel modular varieties, which Awards Wolf Prize (1978)
describe Siegel modular forms, are recognised as part Scientific career
of the moduli theory of abelian varieties. In all this Fields Mathematics
work the structural implications of analytic methods
Institutions Johann Wolfgang Goethe-
show through.
Universität
In the early 1970s Weil gave a series of seminars on Institute for Advanced Study

the history of number theory prior to the 20th century Doctoral Edmund Landau
and he remarked that Siegel once told him that when advisor
the first person discovered the simplest case of Doctoral Hel Braun
Faulhaber's formula then, in Siegel's words, "Es gefiel students Kurt Mahler
dem lieben Gott." (It pleased the dear Lord.) Siegel
Christian Pommerenke
was a profound student of the history of mathematics
and put his studies to good use in such works as the Theodor Schneider
Riemann–Siegel formula, which Siegel found[8] while Jürgen Moser
reading through Riemann's unpublished papers.

Works
by Siegel:

Transcendental numbers, 1949[9]

Analytic functions of several complex variables, Stevens 1949; 2008 pbk edition[10]
Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works), 3 Bände, Springer 1966
with Jürgen Moser Lectures on Celestial mechanics 1971, based upon the older work
Vorlesungen über Himmelsmechanik, Springer 1956[11]
On the history of the Frankfurt Mathematics Seminar, Mathematical Intelligencer Vol.1,
1978/9, No. 4
Über einige Anwendungen diophantischer Approximationen, Sitzungsberichte der
Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1929 (sein Satz über Endlichkeit Lösungen
ganzzahliger Gleichungen)
Transzendente Zahlen, BI Hochschultaschenbuch 1967
Vorlesungen über Funktionentheorie, 3 Bde. (auch in Bd.3 zu seinen Modulfunktionen,
English translation "Topics in Complex Function Theory",[12] 3 Vols., Wiley)
Symplectic geometry, Academic Press, September 2014
Advanced analytic number theory, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research 1980
Lectures on the Geometry of Numbers. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. 16 November
1989. ISBN 978-3-540-50629-4.
Letter (https://plus.google.com/107976469380197792992/posts/LVTEUKSHeAR) to Louis J.
Mordell, March 3, 1964.
about Siegel:

Harold Davenport: Reminiscences on conversations with Carl Ludwig Siegel, Mathematical

Intelligencer 1985, Nr.2
Helmut Klingen, Helmut Rüssmann, Theodor Schneider: Carl Ludwig Siegel, Jahresbericht
DMV, Bd.85, 1983(Zahlentheorie, Himmelsmechanik, Funktionentheorie)
Jean Dieudonné: Article in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Eberhard Freitag: Siegelsche Modulfunktionen, Jahresbericht DMV, vol. 79, 1977, pp. 79–86
Hel Braun: Eine Frau und die Mathematik 1933–1940, Springer 1990 (Reminiscence)
Constance Reid: Hilbert (https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0387946748), as well as
Courant (https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0387946705), Springer (The two
biographies contain some information on Siegel.)
Max Deuring: Carl Ludwig Siegel, 31. Dezember 1896 – 4. April 1981, Acta Arithmetica, Vol.
45, 1985, pp. 93–113, online (http://matwbn.icm.edu.pl/ksiazki/aa/aa45/aa4521.pdf) and
Publications list (http://matwbn.icm.edu.pl/ksiazki/aa/aa45/aa4522.pdf)
Goro Shimura: "1996 Steele Prizes" (with Shimura's reminiscences concerning C. L.
Siegel), Notices of the AMS, Vol. 43, 1996, pp. 1343–7, pdf (https://www.ams.org/notices/19
9611/comm-steele.pdf)
Serge Lang: Mordell's Review, Siegel's letter to Mordell, diophantine geometry and 20th
century mathematics, Notices American Mathematical Society 1995, in Gazette des
Mathematiciens 1995, [1] (https://web.archive.org/web/20120415113338/http://smf4.emath.f
r/Publications/Gazette/1995/63/smf_gazette_63_17-36.pdf)

See also
Bourget's hypothesis
Siegel's conjecture
 Siegel's number
Siegel disk
Siegel's lemma
Siegel upper half-space
Siegel–Weil formula
Siegel parabolic subgroup
Smith–Minkowski–Siegel mass formula
Riemann–Siegel formula
Riemann–Siegel theta function
Siegel–Shidlovsky theorem
Siegel–Walfisz theorem
Siegel's theorem (Minkowski–Hlawka theorem)

References
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Carl Ludwig Siegel" (https://mathshistory.st-andr
ews.ac.uk/Biographies/Siegel.html), MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of
St Andrews
1. "Siegel Method" (https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Siegel_method#References).
Encyclopedia of Mathematics.
2. Pérez, R. A. (2011) A brief but historic article of Siegel (https://www.ams.org/notices/201104/
rtx110400558p.pdf), NAMS 58(4), 558–566.
3. "Obituary: Prof. Carl L. Siegel, 84; Leading Mathematician" (https://www.nytimes.com/1981/
04/15/obituaries/prof-carl-l-siegel-84-leading-mathematician.html). NY Times. April 15, 1981.
4. Krantz, Steven G. (2002). Mathematical Apocrypha (https://archive.org/details/mathematical
apoc00stev/page/185). Mathematical Association of America. pp. 185–186 (https://archive.o
rg/details/mathematicalapoc00stev/page/185). ISBN 0-88385-539-9.
5. Freddy Litten: Die Carathéodory-Nachfolge in München (1938–1944)
6. Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1967–68 (https://books.google.com/books?id=MpYrAAAAYAAJ&
pg=PA24). National Academy of Sciences (U.S.). 1967. p. 24.
7. Retakh, Vladimir, ed. (2013). "Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, Part I" (https://www.ams.org/notice
s/201301/rnoti-p24.pdf) (PDF). Notices of the AMS. 60 (1): 24–49. doi:10.1090/noti937 (http
s://doi.org/10.1090%2Fnoti937).
8. Barkan, Eric; Sklar, David (2018). "On Riemann's Nachlass for Analytic Number Theory: A
translation of Siegel's Uber". arXiv:1810.05198 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.05198) [math.HO
(https://arxiv.org/archive/math.HO)].
9. James, R. D. (1950). "Review: Transcendental numbers, by C. L. Siegel" (https://www.ams.o
rg/journals/bull/1950-56-06/S0002-9904-1950-09435-X/S0002-9904-1950-09435-X.pdf)
(PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 56 (6): 523–526. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1950-09435-X (http
s://doi.org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1950-09435-X).
10. Berg, Michael (June 9, 2008). "Review of Analytic Functions of Several Complex Variables
by Carl L. Siegel" (https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/analytic-functions-of-several-co
mplex-variables-0). MAA Reviews, Mathematical Association of America.
11. Diliberto, Stephen P. (1958). "Book Review: Vorlesungen über Himmelsmechanik" (https://d
oi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9904-1958-10205-0). Bulletin of the American Mathematical
Society. 64 (4): 192–197. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1958-10205-0 (https://doi.org/10.1090%
2FS0002-9904-1958-10205-0). ISSN 0002-9904 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0002-990
4).
12. Baily, Walter L. (1975). "Review: Carl L. Siegel, Topics in complex function theory" (http://pro
jecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183536863). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 81 (3, Part 1): 528–536.
doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1975-13730-x (https://doi.org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1975-1373
0-x).

External links
Carl Ludwig Siegel (https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=45055) at the Mathematics
Genealogy Project
Freddy Litten Die Carathéodory-Nachfolge in München 1938–1944 (http://litten.de/fulltext/ca
ra.htm)
85. Vol. Heft 4 der DMV (with 3 articles about Siegel's life and works) (http://dml.mathemati
k.uni-bielefeld.de/JB_DMV/JB_DMV_085_4.pdf) (PDF; 6,77 MB)
Siegel, Carl (1921). "Approximation algebraischer Zahlen". Mathematische Zeitschrift
(Dissertation) (in German). 10 (3–4): 173–213. doi:10.1007/BF01211608 (https://doi.org/10.
1007%2FBF01211608). ISSN 0025-5874 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0025-5874).
Siegel, Carl (1921). "Additive Zahlentheorie in Zahlkörpern" (https://eudml.org/doc/145622).
Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung. 31: 22–26.

Website University Göttingen with biography and additional explanations (http://www.math.u

ni-goettingen.de/historisches/siegel/index.html)

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