Leopold Gegenbauer

Leopold Bernhard Gegenbauer (2 February 1849, Asperhofen – 3 June 1903, Gießhübl) was an Austrian mathematician remembered best as an algebraist. Gegenbauer polynomials are named after him.

Leopold Gegenbauer was the son of a doctor. He studied at the University of Vienna from 1869 until 1873. He then went to Berlin where he studied from 1873 to 1875 working under Weierstrass and Kronecker.

After graduating from Berlin, Gegenbauer was appointed to the position of extraordinary professor at the University of Czernowitz (modern Chernivtsi, Ukraine) in 1875, at that time in the Austrian Empire. Czernowitz University was founded in 1875 and Gegenbauer was the first professor of mathematics there. He remained in Czernowitz for three years before moving to the University of Innsbruck where he worked with Otto Stolz. Again he held the position of extraordinary professor in Innsbruck.

In 1973 in Vienna in the district of Floridsdorf (21. Bezirk) a street was named in his honor the Gegenbauerweg.

Selected works Einige Sätze über Determinanten hohen Ranges, 1890 Über den größten gemeinsamen Theiler, 1892