Rüdiger Thiele

Rolf-Rüdiger Thiele (born 29 April 1943) is a German historian of mathematics, known for his historical research on Hilbert's twenty-fourth problem.

Early life, family and education

Rolf-Rüdiger Thiele was born in Polepp, Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic).

Thiele studied mathematics, physics, and psychology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and received his promotion (Ph.D.) there in 1973.

Career Thiele worked in the publishing business in Leipzig for B. G. Teubner Verlag and Salomon Hirzel Verlag. From 1986 to 2008, he worked at the Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences at the University of Leipzig. He has held visiting positions at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (from 1992 to 1995 as chair for the history of natural sciences), at TU Darmstadt, at the University of Bonn (from 1995 to 1996), and at the University of Toronto. He discovered the 24th problem in an unpublished notebook among Hilbert's Nachlass (collection of manuscripts and notes). He has been the vice president of the Euler Society.

His most important works deal with the biographies of Leonhard Euler, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, David Hilbert, Felix Klein. Central topics in his historical research are analysis and the calculus of variations. In his writings, Thiele uses numerous previously unpublished sources.

In addition to numerous book publications and specialist articles on various questions in the history of mathematics, he has published several books on mathematical games in recreational mathematics (often in collaboration with Konrad Haase).

Selected publications

Von der Bernoullischen Brachistochrone zum Kalibrator-Konzept: ein historischer Abriß zur Entstehung der Feldtheorie in der Variationsrechnung. Habilitation. Turnhout, Brepols 2007. With Konrad Haase: