Whilst on vacation my obsessive documentation of birthdays goes by the wayside, while I am distracted by life. however, I do wish to take a step back and make note that Christmas Eve was the 146th birthday for German mathematician and World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker [1868-1941]. Lasker is best known for holding on to the World Chess Championship for 27 years, longer than anyone else. He defeated World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz [1836-1900] in 1894, and held the title until he was himself defeated by José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera [1888-1942] in 1921. Lasker is widely considered in the short list of greatest chess champions, with a combative style. Chess metrics shows Lasker in the worlds top 10 players almost constantly from 1889 to 1928, and as the worlds top rated player on 292 monthly lists between June 1890 and December 1926. But Lasker is impressive because he was also a distinguished professional mathematician. Laskers doctoral thesis, Über Reihen auf der Convergenzgrenze was accepted in 1900. In 1905 he introduced a new idea in the theory of rings, the idea of a primary ideal, and proved the primary decomposition theorem for the ideal of a polynomial ring in terms of primary ideals. His thesis advisor was Max Noether [1844-1921], and Noethers daughter Emmy Noether [1882-1935] prominently generalized Laskers theorem, which then formed the basis for the abstract theory of rings that is now common in modern algebra (Emmy is also known to theoretical physicists for Noethers Theorem, proving the existence of conserved quantities). Lasker is tied with Euwe as my favorite World Champion; Euwe because he rose to the top despite playing chess only on break from his teaching duties, and Lasker because he had an effective career as a mathematician. So few of the worlds top players today are noteworthy outside of chess. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Lasker.html chessgames/perl/chessplayer?pid=19149 chessmetrics/cm/CM2/PlayerProfile.asp?Params=199510SSSSS3S073076000000111000000000000010100
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 04:02:48 +0000
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