Karl F. Sundman

Karl Frithiof Sundman (28 October 1873, Kaskinen – 28 September 1949, Helsinki)^[1] was a Finnish mathematician who used analytic methods to prove the existence of a convergent infinite series solution to the three-body problem in 1906 and 1909.^[2][3][4] He also published a paper on regularization methods in mechanics in 1912. In the 1990s, Qiudong Wang generalized Sundman's solution to the case of more than three bodies.^[5][6][7]

Awards, recognition

Sundman was awarded the Pontécoulant prize by the French Academy of Science in 1913 for this work.^[1] In 1947, Sundman was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The crater Sundman on the Moon is named after him, as is the asteroid 1424 Sundmania.

References

1. Karl Frithiof Sundman bio
2. K. Sundman (1912). "Memoire sur le probleme des trois corps". Acta Mathematica 36: 105–179. doi:10.1007/BF02422379.
3. Thomas A. Hockey; et al. (Sep 18, 2007). Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer. p. 1111. ISBN 0387304002.
4. June Barrow-Green (2010). "The dramatic episode of Sundman". Historia Mathematica 37 (2): 164–203. doi:10.1016/j.hm.2009.12.004.
5. Babadzanjanz, L. K. (1979), "Existence of the continuations in the N-body problem", Celestial Mechanics 20 (1): 43–57, doi:10.1007/BF01236607, MR 538663.
6. Wang, Qiu Dong (1991), "The global solution of the n-body problem", Celestial Mechanics & Dynamical Astronomy 50 (1): 73–88, Bibcode:1991CeMDA..50...73W, doi:10.1007/BF00048987, MR 1117788.
7. Babadzanjanz, L. K. (1993), "On the global solution of the N-body problem", Celestial Mechanics & Dynamical Astronomy 56 (3): 427–449, doi:10.1007/BF00691812, MR 1225892.

• Diacu, F.: The solution of the n-body Problem, The Mathematical Intelligencer, 1996, 18, p. 66–70
• G Järnefelt, "Karl Fridhiof Sundman", Soc. Sci. Fenn. Arsbok 30 (2) (1953), 1-13.
• G Järnefelt, "Karl F Sundman in Memoriam", Acta Mathematica 83 (1950), i-vi.

External links