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Karl Weierstraß

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Karl Weierstrass
Karl Weierstraß
painting by Conrad Fehr , 1895
Born(1815-10-31)31 October 1815
Died19 February 1897(1897-02-19) (aged 81)
NationalityGerman
Alma materUniversity of Bonn
Known for
  • Weierstrass product inequality
  • (ε, δ)-definition of limit
  • Weierstrass–Erdmann condition
  • Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsGewerbeinstitut
Doctoral students

Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstraß (31 October 1815 - 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician. Most of his work is about using logic as a thorough foundation of analysis. He mainly used power series for this. He also provided foundations for the theory of elliptic functions, differential geometry and the calculus of variations. The Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem is named in his honour: according to the theorem, every bounded sequence of real numbers has at least one limit point. He criticised earlier mathematicians for using assumptions too often, and being too vague in their definitions.