Mathematical Genealogy

Nerd Alert. Continue at your own peril. ⚠

In the mathematical community, they maintain a record of PhD advisors and their students. This is a sort of ultra-nerdy ancestral database.

Highlighted in the graphic below are the people’s names you will probably encounter in your CBE, Math, and Physics courses.


digraph br_math_genealogy{ bgcolor=transparent; ranksep = 0.4; graph [splines=ortho]; node [shape=box, width=2.5, fontsize=11, height=0.6, fontname="arial", color=dimgray, penwidth="1.5"]; edge [color=black, arrowsize="0.8"]; /* list of people */ Lagrange [label="Joseph Louis Lagrange", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod] Laplace [label="Pierre-Simon Laplace", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod] Kastner [label="Abraham Gotthelf Kästner"] Pfaff [label="Johann Friedrich Pfaff"] {rank=same; Pfaff Lagrange Laplace Kastner} Gauss [label="Carl Friedrich Gauss", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod]; Poisson [label="Simeon Denis Poisson", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod] Fourier [label="Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod] Langsdorf [label="Karl Christian von Langsdorf"] {rank=same; Gauss Poisson Fourier Langsdorf} Ohm [label="Martin Ohm", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod]; Dirichlet [label="Gustav Peter Lejeune Dirichlet"]; Gerling [label="Christian Ludwig Gerling"]; {rank=same; Ohm Dirichlet Gerling} Lipschitz [label="Rudolf Otto Lipschitz"]; Plucker [label="Julius Plücker"]; {rank=same; Lipschitz Plucker} Klein [label="C. Felix (Christian) Klein"]; {rank=same; Klein} Foppl [label="August Otto Föppl"]; {rank=same; Foppl} Prandtl [label="Ludwig Prandtl", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod]; {rank=same; Prandtl} vonKarman [label="Theodore von Kármán", style=filled, fillcolor=palegoldenrod]; {rank=same; vonKarman} Lin [label="C.C. (Chia-Chiao) Lin"]; {rank=same; Lin} Segel [label="Lee Aaron Segel"]; {rank=same; Segel} Davis [label="Stephen Howard Davis"]; Bankoff [label="Seymour George Bankoff"]; {rank=same; Davis Bankoff} Reisfeld [label="Brad Reisfeld"]; {rank=same; Reisfeld} Zurlinden [label="Todd Zurlinden"]; {rank=same; Zurlinden} /* connect the people together */ Lagrange -> Fourier; Lagrange -> Poisson; Laplace -> Poisson; Kastner -> Langsdorf; Pfaff -> Gauss; Gauss -> Gerling; Fourier -> Dirichlet; Poisson -> Dirichlet; Langsdorf -> Ohm; Gerling -> Plucker; Ohm -> Lipschitz; Dirichlet -> Lipschitz; Plucker -> Klein; Lipschitz -> Klein; Klein -> Foppl; Foppl -> Prandtl; Prandtl -> vonKarman; vonKarman -> Lin; Lin -> Segel; Segel -> Davis; Bankoff -> Reisfeld; Davis -> Reisfeld; Reisfeld -> Zurlinden; }