Goldbach, Christian

Goldbach, Christian

 

Born Mar. 3, 1690, in Königs-berg, now Kaliningrad; died Nov. 20 (Dec. 1), 1764, in Moscow. Mathematician. Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (from 1725).

Goldbach graduated from the faculty of law of the University of Konigsberg and then became interested in mathematics. He moved to Russia in 1725. From 1725 to 1740 he held the post of conference secretary of the Academy of Sciences. In 1742 he transferred to the Collegium of Foreign Affairs and moved to Moscow. He maintained a regular correspondence with L. Euler (between 1729 and 1764), and in one of his letters (1742), Goldbach proposed to Euler a hypothesis that is now known under the name of the Goldbach problem. In the first volumes of Kommentarii Peterburgskoi AN, Goldbach published six papers, two of which dealt with differential equations and two. the most interesting, with infinite series.

REFERENCE

Iushkevich, A. P. Istoriia matematiki v Rossii do I9l7g. Moscow. 1968.