Franz Woepcke, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetFranz Woepcke
German mathematician
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
About Franz Woepcke
- Franz Woepcke (May 6, 1826 – March 25, 1864) was an historian, Orientalist, and mathematician.
- He is remembered for publishing editions and translations of medieval Arabic mathematical manuscripts and for his research on the propagation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in the medieval era. Woepcke was born in Dessau in Germany.
- He studied mathematics at the University of Berlin, gaining his doctorate in 1847.
- With astronomer Johann Franz Encke and archaeologist Ernst Heinrich Tölken as his academic advisors, he penned his dissertation involving sundials of antiquity (Archaeologico-mathematicae circa solaria veterum).
- Afterwards he studied Arabic language at the University of Bonn, where in 1850 he obtained his habilitation.
- Woepcke spent much of his subsequent career studying and working outside of Germany, particularly in Paris.
- Most of his output was written in French.
- In 1856 he returned to Berlin and taught classes at the Französischen Gymnasium until 1858.
- He died in Paris on March 25, 1864 at the age of 37. Among his better known works are: an edition of the algebra book of Omar Khayyám (died c.
- 1131) (L'algèbre d'Omar Alkhayyâmî, publiée, traduite et accompagnée d'extraits des manuscrits inédits, 1851); an edition of the algebra book of Al-Karkhi (died c.
- 1029) (Extrait du Fakhrî, traité d'algèbre par Mohammed Alkarkhi, précédé d'un mémoire sur l'algèbre indéterminée chez les Arabes, 1853); lengthy essays on the introduction and propagation of the Hindu-Arabic numerals (Sur l'introduction de l'arithmetique indienne en Occident (1859) and Mémoire sur la propagation des chiffres indiens (1863)); and essays involving the influences of Arabic sources in the mathematics of Leonardo Pisano (died c.
- 1250). Hippolyte Taine dedicated his book De l'intelligence to him and described him as his friend that he had most respected.
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