author
A. (Arthur) Schoenflies
1853–1928
Best known for linking abstract mathematics to the symmetry of crystals, this German scholar also left his name on one of topology’s classic results. His work helped shape how mathematicians think about structure, space, and symmetry.
1 Audiobook
Einführung in die Hauptgesetze der Zeichnerischen Darstellungsmethoden
by A. (Arthur) Schoenflies
About the author
Born in 1853 in Landsberg an der Warthe and educated in Berlin, Arthur Moritz Schoenflies was a German mathematician who studied under Ernst Eduard Kummer. He earned his doctorate in 1877 and went on to teach and write in areas that connected pure mathematics with the natural sciences.
He is especially remembered for applying group theory to crystallography, helping organize the study of crystal symmetries in a clear mathematical way. He also worked in topology, where the Schoenflies theorem became one of the field’s well-known landmarks.
Schoenflies died in Frankfurt am Main in 1928. Though not as widely known outside mathematics as some of his contemporaries, his ideas had a lasting influence on both geometry and the mathematical study of symmetry.