Jørgen Pedersen Gram, Danish mathematician and academic (d. 1919)
Jørgen Pedersen Gram (27 June 1850 – 29 April 1916) was a Danish actuary and mathematician who was born in Nustrup, Duchy of Schleswig, Denmark and died in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Important papers of his include On series expansions determined by the methods of least squares, and Investigations of the number of primes less than a given number. The mathematical method that bears his name, the Gram–Schmidt process, was first published in the former paper, in 1883. Gram's theorem and the Gramian matrix are also named after him.
For number theorists his main fame is the series for the Riemann zeta function (the leading function in Riemann's exact prime-counting function). Instead of using a series of logarithmic integrals, Gram's function uses logarithm powers and the zeta function of positive integers. It has recently been supplanted by a formula of Ramanujan that uses the Bernoulli numbers directly instead of the zeta function.
Gram was the first mathematician to provide a systematic theory of the development of skew frequency curves, showing that the normal symmetric Gaussian error curve was but one special case of a more general class of frequency curves.He died on his way to a meeting of the Royal Danish Academy after being struck by a bicycle.
1850Jun, 27
Jørgen Pedersen Gram
Choose Another Date
Events on 1850
- 29Jan
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress. - 7Mar
Compromise of 1850
Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war. - 29Jun
Church of Greece
Autocephaly officially granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Church of Greece. - 18Sep
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. - 29Sep
Universalis Ecclesiae
The papal bull Universalis Ecclesiae restores the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales.