Rolf-Rüdiger Thiele (born 29 April 1943) is a German historian of mathematics, known for his historical research on Hilbert's twenty-fourth problem.
Early life, family and education
Rolf-Rüdiger Thiele was born in Polepp, Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic).
Thiele studied mathematics, physics, and psychology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and received his promotion (Ph.D.) there in 1973.
Career Thiele worked in the publishing business in Leipzig for B. G. Teubner Verlag and Salomon Hirzel Verlag. From 1986 to 2008, he worked at the Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences at the University of Leipzig. He has held visiting positions at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (from 1992 to 1995 as chair for the history of natural sciences), at TU Darmstadt, at the University of Bonn (from 1995 to 1996), and at the University of Toronto.
In 2001, Thiele habilitated in the department of mathematics at the University of Hamburg with his work Von der Bernoullischen Brachistochrone zum Kalibratorkonzept (From the Bernoullian brachistochrone to the calibrator concept). His habilitation thesis was published in the series Collection de travaux de l'Académie internationale d'Histoire des Sciences , Brepols Verlag, Turnhout. In 2002, he became a privatdozent in the department of mathematics at the University of Leipzig. In 2004, he was awarded the Lester R. Ford Award of the Mathematical Association of America for his expository article on Hilbert's cancelled 24th problem. He discovered the 24th problem in an unpublished notebook among Hilbert's Nachlass (collection of manuscripts and notes). He has been the vice president of the Euler Society.
His most important works deal with the biographies of Leonhard Euler, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, David Hilbert, Felix Klein. Central topics in his historical research are analysis and the calculus of variations. In his writings, Thiele uses numerous previously unpublished sources.
In addition to numerous book publications and specialist articles on various questions in the history of mathematics, he has published several books on mathematical games in recreational mathematics (often in collaboration with Konrad Haase).
Selected publications
Von der Bernoullischen Brachistochrone zum Kalibrator-Konzept: ein historischer Abriß zur Entstehung der Feldtheorie in der Variationsrechnung. Habilitation. Turnhout, Brepols 2007. With Konrad Haase:
Sources Kürschners Deutscher Gelehrten-Kalender 1992 Marquis Who's Who in the World
References
External links Bibliographie Rüdiger Thiele (as of January 2012) entry in: Vademekum der Geschichtswissenschaften 2006/2007, p. 628.