Hermann Kinkelin


Hermann Kinkelin was a Swiss mathematician and politician.

Life

His family came from Lindau on Lake Constance. He studied at the Universities of Zurich, Lausanne, and Munich. In 1865 he became professor of mathematics at the University of Basel, where until his retirement in 1908, the full burden of teaching of mathematics was his responsibility. In 1867 he was naturalized in Basel. He was also a statistician, he founded the Swiss Statistical Society and the Statistical-economic society in Basel and led the 1870 and 1880 Federal census in Basel.
Kinkelin's works dealt with the gamma function, infinite series, and solid geometry of the axonometric. Kinkelin produced more than 60 publications in actuarial mathematics and statistics. He was a founder of the Basel "mortality and age checkout" and the Swiss Statistical Society, of which he was a member during 1877–86.
Hermann Kinkelin died in Basel on 1 January 1913.

Publications

Investigation into the formula Archiv der Mathematik und Physik 22, 1854, pp. 189–224 The fundamental equations of the Γ function, Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern 385 und 386, 1857, pp. 1–11 On some infinite series, Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern 419 und 420, 1858, pp. 89–104 About a transcendent relatives of the gamma function and its application to the integral calculus, Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik 57, 1860, pp. 122–138 The oblique axonometric projection, Vierteljahrsschrift der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich 6, 1861, pp. 358–367 On the Theory of Prismoides, Archiv der Mathematik und Physik 39, 1862, p. 181–186 Proof of three sybling expressions of the triangle, Archiv der Mathematik und Physik 39, 1862, pp. 186–188 New evidence of the presence complex roots in an algebraic equation, Mathematische Annalen 1, 1869, pp. 502–506 The calculation of the Christian Easter, Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 15, 1870, pp. 217–228 Lecture in Die Basler Mathematiker Daniel Bernoulli und Leonhard Euler, Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel 7, 1884, pp. 51–71 Constructions of the centers of curvature of conics, Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 40, 1895, pp. 58–59 About the gamma function, Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel 16, 1903, pp. 309–328

Monographs

General theory of harmonic series with applications to number theory, Schweighauser, Basel 1862 Short notice of the metric weights and measures, 1876; Nachdruck: Andreas Mächler, Riehen 2006,