A BIOGRAFI
NIELS HENRIK ABEL
(1802 - 1829)
Written by Maria Moksnes and Katrine Sandnes.
Abel was born 5, August 1812 in Finnøy in Ryfylke. He moved with his family to Gjerstad in Aust - Agder, when he was two years old. Abel was second oldest out of 6 children. His father Søren Georg Abel had a drinking problem, and he died when Abel was only 18 years old. Also his mother Marie Sørensen was a alcoholic, and the children and she had big economical problems after the fathers death.
Abel got a scolarship on the Katedralscool in Oslo, when he was 13 years old. Mathematic was his best subject from the start, but when he got Holmboe (*) as a new mathematical teacher big things started to happen. Holmboe became a great inpirationsourse to Abel, and he was well known for his interesting teaching. He also lent Abelbooks in higher mathematics, and guided him to work with works of well known mathematicians.
In 1821 he started to study at the Universety in Oslo. He had economical problems, but got to live at the dorm "Regensen" for free. In 1823, Abel published his first important paper on definite integrals, which included the first solutions of an integral equation. He also produced another valuable work of the intergration of functions. The same year Abel had his first trip to Copenhagen. In Denmark he worked with the solution of the theorem of the elliptic functions.
Abel also got to travel to Europe in 1825 -1827. In Berlin he met August Leopold Crelle. Crelle started to publish a mathematical paper, were Abel got 6 of his mathematical works published. When Abel got to Paris he presented his new "masterpiece" on elliptic functions and integrals which included Abels theorem, to the French Academy of Sciences.
Abel returned to Norway in May 1827, and then he had his last hardworking period which lasted for 1,5 years. He got weaker and weaker because of his illness, tuberculosis. He had to stay in bed for the whole Cristmast holiday, when he visited his fiance Christine Kemp at Froland Verk where she worked.
In April 1829 Abel died .
Just to days after he got a letter from Crelle which said that Abel had gotten a job at the University of Berlin. Thet was probably a job Abel had dreamed of for years.
ABELS MATHEMATICAL WORK
THE QUINTIC EQUATION:
Abel’s first main contribution to mathematics came before entering collage. Abel developed what he thought was the answer to the general solution for the quintic equation ;
ax5 + bx4 + cx3 + dx2 +ex + f = 0
Abel’s teacher Holmboe knew there was noone in Norway with the ability to understand if the answer was correct, so he sent the paper to the mathematican Degen in Denmark. Before receiving the answer, Abel discovered a mistake in his figures, and questioned if there was an answer. Later he eventually proved that a general, algebraic solution to the quintic equation was impossible.
ABELIC GROUPS:
Abel continued to work with equations, and he started to collect the equations that had a solution, and how the solutions would be. These equations were called "Abelic equations". Later some discovered thet they contined Galois-groups, now better known as "Abelic groups".
Abel also worked on probabilety, and elliptic functions and integrals.
Important persons in Abel’s careere.
Bernt Michael Holmboe (1795-1850)
Holmboe was a Norwegian mathematician, who is best known as Abel’s teacher and friend. He discovered Abel’s talent, and he led Abel into the mathematical world.
In 1839 Holmboe published Abel’s first major work: " Oeuvres complètes de N.H.Abel"
August Leopold Crelle (1780-1855)
Crelle was a German mathematician and contruction-engineer, who gave out a lot of technical work. He gave out a mathematical newspaper " Journal für du reine und angewandte Matematik", whereAbel got to publish some of his work. Crelle was also Abel’s good friend when he was in Berlin.
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (1804-1851)
Jacobi was a very talented German mathematician. He started early to try to find the solution the quintic equation. He also gave major contibutions to the theory of numbers.
He was Abel’s "competitor" since they both worked on elliptic functions at the same time.
The history of the Abel-contest
The Norwegian Mathematical Society was founded in 1918 and they started to have a math-contest every year. The first contest was arranged in 1921 and it lasted untill the middle 1970ities.
The number of contestants were low, sometimes as few as ten. In 1975-76 the contest
died out.
It didn’t take long before someone started to talk about restart these math-contests. In 1979-80, 150 years after Abel’s death, it was arranged a contest for Nordic students, it had 28 contestants.
In 1981 was the Abel-contest started of the Norwegian Mathematical Society in cooperation with a newspaper called Aftenposten. The mathproblems were published throug Aftenposten. The number of contestants were as high as 65 in 1981, but that number dropped the three following years, so the contest’s form was considered.
In 1985 the Abel-contest was given the form it has today, a 100-minutes test at school. 20 of the highest- scored students go to a final, were 6 again go to the International Mathematical Olympiad.