Written by Andreas Igeland

Niels Henrik Abel is probably the most famous Norwegian mathematician ever lived. He was born August the 5. in 1802 in Finnøy, where he lived his first couple of years. Niels was the second son. Abel came from a poor family. He joined the Christiania Cathedral School when he was 13 years old. He managed quite well the first years at school, later he became tired of school. After a few years he got a new mathematics teacher, Bernt Holmboe, who discovered Abel’s mathematics ability. He borrowed Niels some books he used at the university. Bernt become Niels’ strongest supporter and best friend throughout his short but meaningful life. He started working on formula for integrals and equations. After a while he thought he had found a formula to solve equations of fifth grad. Later he discovered an error in his conclusion and he realised that there weren’t any formula to solve equations of fifth grad. In 1823 he resaved 100 dollar so he could move to Copenhagen and meet Danish mathematicians. In Copenhagen he tried to prove the solution to the equation a^n=b^n+c^n when n>2. He found out that if there is a solution the number must be very large. In 1824 he released a 6 page pamphlet were he had proof his best result. Because he had to pay with his own money he had to save space so it was very difficult to understand what he meant. In the summer of 1825 he resaved a scholarship so he could travel abroad. First he travelled to Berlin where he met Crelle, who was a hobbymathematician. Crelle managed to recruit Abel and some other young talented mathematicians to his newly formed periodical called "Journal für die Reine und Angewandte Mathematik" known as "Crelles Journal". It became the most appointed periodical in the world. The young mathematicians could print their result without costing them anything. The meaning was that Abel should go and visited Gauss, but his friend travelled to Paris and he didn’t dear to go alone and met Gauss so went along his friends. The tour to Paris was a big disappointment. The fresh mathematicians didn’t take any notice of an anonymous foreigner. Abel had recently wrote a treatise about algebraic equations, witch newer generations consider as his masterwork. Cauchy and Legendre were appointed by the academy to evaluate it, but they forgot to look at it. Abel became very disappointed. Around new year between 1826-27 went back to Berlin and Crelle. In May 1827 he came back to Christiania. Meanwhile Abel where abroad, his old teacher Holmboe had been appointed as the new professor in mathematics at the University of Christiania. After some complications he managed to get Abel a job at the university as a professor in astronomy and mechanic. In 1827 a young German called Jacob released some interesting results on elliptic integrals without any proof. Later he managed to prove them by using some of Abel’s work. Legendre became very enthusiastic, but Jacob forgot to mention Abel. When Abel became aware of that he tried to forestall him, that led to the biggest advance in the theory on elliptic functions the last 50 years. Abel died 6. of April 1829. 2 days after is death he was appointed as a professor at the University of Berlin.