Blaschke, Wilhelm Johann Eugen

Wilhelm Johann Eugen Blaschke, (born Sept. 13, 1885, Graz, Austria-Hungary—died March 17, 1962, Hamburg), German mathematician whose major contributions to geometry concerned kinematics and differential and integral geometry.

Blaschke became extraordinary professor of mathematics at the Deutsche Technische Hochschule (German Technical University), Prague, in 1913 and two years later accepted a post at the University of Leipzig. In 1917 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Königsberg. He accepted a professorial post with the University of Hamburg in 1919.

Blaschke discovered kinematic mapping, which later became important to the axiomatic foundations of various geometries, and established it as a fundamental technique in kinematics. He also originated topological differential geometry, the study of invariant differentiable mappings. His more important works include Kreis und Kugel (1916; “Circle and Sphere”); Vorlesungen über Differentialgeometrie, 3 vol. (1921–29; “Lectures on Differential Geometry”); Vorlesungen über Integralgeometrie, 2 vol. (1935–37; “Lectures on Integral Geometry”); Grundlagen von Einsteins Relativitatstheorie (1921–23; “Foundations of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity”); and Analytische Geometrie (1948; “Analytical Geometry”).