Notes on B. L. van der Waerden life before quantum mechanics

van_der_Waerden_early_education.txt

Those are my notes on Martina R. Schneider's book "Zwischen zwei Disziplinen" used in this video:

https://youtu.be/PrF5eMXr0Bc


## B. L. van der Waerden (vdW)
(p. 69)
Born 1903
Father: politican (socialist)
Later in his life, Waerden was also a historian (knew Greek, then)

## Education
1919-1924 (so 16++), University of Amsterdam.
  - studied: mathematics, physics, mechanics, chemistry
  - Teachers: Weizenbröck, Mannoury, Brouwer, van der Waals
  - Learned invariant theory! (esp. for relativity)
There was no actual _modern_ physics teachers, however there were the
mathematicians who covered math inspired by/for modern physics.

## "Zur Relativitätstheorie (1921)"
(p. 78-88)
* popular relativity (special and general) in socialist magazine
* General popular interest in relativity in society at that time (less so for QM).
  => first article of vdW is a defense of relativity (And also critial of Aether theory)
* A Kantian conception of the mind were popular, and its vocabulary in common use (see discussion of "a priori", etc.)

* As a person vdW is openly critical, even as a young man towards elders (e.g. of van der Waals)

# Göttingen
(pp. 89-)
* Recommendation for vdW written by Brouwer. Learned e.g. under Noether and Courant
  * Academics giving seminary at Göttingen at that time (early 20's):
    - Hecke, Hilbert, Behmann, Courant, Bernays, Klein, Kneser,
      Landau, Noether, Ostrowski, Runge, Walther,...
  * Pupils:
    - Friedrichs, Lewy,...
  * Physicists: James Franck, Born, ...
* Göttingen: Strong tie between math and physics due to Hilbert & Klein
* Made physics "their own" as far as axiomatizations are concerned
* "Nostrification" (appropriation), i.e. reformulating/generalizing without
citation (e.g. of British algebraic geometers, e.g. by Noether).
* Lots of verbal communication between subjects (math physics) a high competition
among people in Göttingen.
* Influential book by Courant "Methoden_der_mathematischen_Physik"
  (became popular as it already had relevant tool for the emerging QM):

- vdW liked and learned a lot of classical physics as it was available in Göttingen.
- The book has a few pages about a lecture/presentation on gas density that was
probably motivated by Hilberts lectures on the topic.

* Quickly back to the Netherlands for his Disseration, under Vries, in enumerative geometry
(counting solutions in algebraic geometry, intersection theory)
* Then to Hamburg, working with Artin, Hecke, Schreier. Praises discussions with Artin.
* Meets Pauli.
* Probably participates at "Deutsche Mathematiker- und Physiker Tag" (on which Heisenberg and Einstein presents)
* Reports of an event where he privately lectured an Engineer but could tell him much
  about partial differential equations - in turn of which he feels guilty that he took money from the guy.
  Also reports then (somewhat surprisingly/over-enthusiastically) of being super excited of a differential equations article.

Back to Göttingen
Basically everybody showed up in Göttingen (Dirac, Casimir, etc. etc.)

# Groningen 1928-1931
Has many options, but Ehrenfest really wants him in Groningen
* At intro presentation, talks about "Abstrakisten" vs. "Konkretisten"
* teaches geometry
* finishes 'modern algebra'
* The book talks about vdW's friend van Dantzig, who he supervised
  - Dantzig had problems getting his Lector position due to Brouwer
    (claims of unoriginality and not writing alone)
* book has a few pages on the physics in Groningen

## Wikipedia references
* http://www.math.uni-goettingen.de/historisches/mathematiker.html
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrit_Mannoury
  (Pure mathematican? Seemingly not Significs (described as analogy of vienna circle))
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_van_Dantzig
* https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Rellich
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methoden_der_mathematischen_Physik
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderne_Algebra
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invariant_theory
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerative_geometry