Mathematician:Thomas Joannes Stieltjes

Mathematician

Dutch mathematician whose main fields of study included continued fractions and measure theory.

Nationality

Dutch

History

• Born: 29 Dec 1856, Zwolle, Overijssel, The Netherlands
• 1873: Started studies at Polytechnical School of Delft
• 1875-76: Failed examinations
• April 1877: Became assistant astronomer at Leiden Observatory, via his influential father
• 23 June 1878: Father died in Rotterdam
• 8 November 1882: Began a correspondence with Charles Hermite
• 1 January 1883: Allowed by Van de Sande-Bakhuyzen, the director of Leiden Observatory, to work more on mathematical topics
• May 1883: Married Elizabeth Intveld (who encouraged him to give up astronomy for mathematics)
• September 1883: Asked to substitute at the University of Delft for F J van den Berg, who was ill
• 1 December 1883: Resigned from observatory, joined staff of University of Delft full-time
• 1883-84: Failed to gain a position at Groningen because of his lack of a degree
• 1884: Failed, because of a missed communication, to gain a position at Leiden
• April 1885: Went with his family to Paris
• 1885: Elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Amsterdam
• 1886: Received doctorate of science for a thesis on asymptotic series
• 1886: Appointed to the University of Toulouse
• 1889: Appointed to a chair of differential and integral calculus in Toulouse
• Died: 31 Dec 1894 in Toulouse, France

Theorems and Definitions

• Stieltjes Function
• Lebesgue-Stieltjes Integral (with Henri Lebesgue)
• Laplace-Stieltjes Transform (with Pierre-Simon de Laplace)
• Riemann-Stieltjes Integral (with Bernhard Riemann)
• Stieltjes Moment Problem
• Chebyshev-Markov-Stieltjes Inequalities (with Pafnuty Chebyshev} and Andrey Andreyevich Markov)
• Fourier-Stieltjes Coefficients (with Joseph Fourier)

Definitions of concepts named for Thomas Joannes Stieltjes can be found here.

Publications

• 18 June 1894: Recherches sur les fractions continues

Also known as

His name can also be seen rendered as Thomas Jan Stieltjes.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Thomas Joannes Stieltjes": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive