CarlGustavJacobJacobi 2007-03-13 18:17:43 2007-03-14 12:11:46 Biography % this is the default PlanetMath preamble. as your knowledge % of TeX increases, you will probably want to edit this, but % it should be fine as is for beginners. % almost certainly you want these \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{amsfonts} % used for TeXing text within eps files %\usepackage{psfrag} % need this for including graphics (\includegraphics) %\usepackage{graphicx} % for neatly defining theorems and propositions %\usepackage{amsthm} % making logically defined graphics %\usepackage{xypic} % there are many more packages, add them here as you need them % define commands here \emph{Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi} (1804 - 1851) Jewish-German mathematician best known for the Jacobian matrix and the Jacobi symbol. The second son of a successful banker, young Carl was home-schooled until the age of 12, when he entered the Potsdam high school. Four years after earning a degree from Berlin University in 1825 and converting to Catholicism, Jacobi became a mathematics professor there and taught for a dozen years. He read Greek and Latin fluently, and was quite familiar with the work of \PMlinkname{Leonhard Euler}{EulerLeonhard}. In the late 1820s, Jacobi did significant work on elliptic functions in relation to fractions, attracting the interest and praise of \PMlinkname{Carl Friedrich Gauss}{CarlFriedrichGauss} and Adrien-Marie Legendre. In 1843, Jacobi went on a vacation to Italy, beginning his retirement. A lunar crater is named after Jacobi.