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A photo of Thomas Stieltjes by CloudNine –

Top 10 Cool Facts about Thomas Joannes Stieltjes 

Thomas Joannes Stieltjes was born on 29 December 1856. He died on 31 December 1894. He was a Dutch mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of moment problems and contributed to the study of continued fractions.

In 1889, he was appointed professor of differential and integral calculus at Toulouse University. Thomas Joannes worked in only two institutions in his career as a professor. The institutions are TU Delft and the University of Leiden. In the article are the top ten cool facts about Thomas Joannes Stieltjes.

1. The Thomas Stieltjes Institute for Mathematics at Leiden University

A photo of Leiden University by Boon, Jan (1882-?) –

Leiden University is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as a reward to the city of Leiden for its defense against Spanish attacks during the Eighty Years’ War.

It is the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands, as well as one of the most reputed in the country and Europe. Riemann–Stieltjes integral, which was dissolved in 2011, Was named after Thomas Joannes Stieltjes.

2. His father was a learned person

A photo of Dr. Thomas Stieltjes by Anonymous –

His father, Thomas Joannes Stieltjes Senior, was a civil engineer and politician. Stieltjes Sr. was responsible for the construction of various harbors around Rotterdam. Thomas Joannes Stieltjes Senior was a politician who was seated in the Dutch parliament.

3. Thomas failed in his examinations at the Polytechnical School in Delft

Stieltjes Jr. went to university at the Polytechnical School in Delft in 1873. Instead of attending lectures, he spent his student years reading the works of Gauss and Jacobi. Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science.

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi was a German mathematician who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants, and number theory.

The consequence of concentrating on the works of Gauss and Jacobi was that Thomas jr failed his examinations. There were 2 further failures in 1875 and 1876 but his father despaired.

4. His father Thomas Senior used connections to find Thomas Jr. a job

A public domain photo of H. G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen by

Keep in mind that Thomas Joannes Stieltjes Senior was a prominent politician and also civil engineer. Thomas Sr was friends with many people with high ranks in big institutions.

H. G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen who was the director of Leiden University was one of the friends of Thomas’s father. Therefore, Stieltjes Jr. was able to get a job as an assistant at Leiden Observatory.

5. Charles Hermite was Stieltjes’ correspondence throughout his life

Charles Hermite was a French mathematician who did research concerning number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. He is the father of Hermite polynomials, Hermite interpolation, Hermite normal form, Hermitian operators, and cubic Hermite splines are named in his honor.

So, after Thomas found a job at Leiden University, soon afterward, he began a correspondence with Charles Hermite which lasted for the rest of his life. He originally wrote to Hermite concerning celestial mechanics, but the subject quickly turned to mathematics and he began to devote his spare time to mathematical research.

6. Thomas decide to shift to mathematical topics at the end of 1882

The director of Leiden Observatory, van de Sande-Bakhuyzen, responded quickly to Stieltjes’ request on 1 January 1883 to stop his observational work to allow him to work more on mathematical topics.

In 1883, he also married Elizabeth Intveld in May. She also encouraged him to move from astronomy to mathematics. And in September, Stieltjes was asked to substitute at the University of Delft for F J van den Berg.

From January 1883 until December of that year, he lectured on analytical geometry and descriptive geometry. He resigned from his post at the observatory at the end of that year. This is because he wanted to further his interest in Mathematics.

7. Thomas missed a post at Groningen because he lacked the required diplomas

A photo of buildings along the canal in Groningen by Wenkbrauwalbatros –

Groningen is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The capital of the north, Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural center of the northern part of the country.

In 1884, Stieltjes applied for a chair in Groningen. He was initially accepted, but in the end turned down by the Department of Education, since he lacked the required diplomas. I think some of his failures in some examinations while he was in school had come back haunting him.

Those diplomas that he disregarded while he was in school were the qualifications for him t get the post at Groningen.

8. Hermite and professor David Bierens de Haan helped Stieltjes become a professor

Professor David Bierens de Haan photo by Adolphe Cohen –

After he failed to secure a post at Groningen, Hermite, and professor David Bierens de Haan arranged for an honorary doctorate to be granted to Stieltjes by Leiden University, enabling him to become a professor in 1884.

9. He is sometimes called the father of the analytic theory of continued fractions

Stieltjes worked on almost all branches of analysis, continued fractions, and number theory. His work is also seen as important as a first step toward the theory of Hilbert spaces. This is why he was sometimes called the father of the analytic theory of continued fractions

Other important contributions to mathematics that he made involved discontinuous functions and divergent series, differential equations, interpolation, the gamma function, and elliptic functions. He became known internationally because of the Riemann–Stieltjes integral.

10. Stieltjes matrix was inveted by Thomas Stieltjes

Thomas Stieltjes photo by an Unknown author –

TOP 10 INTRIGUING FACTS ABOUT JOHANNES DE GRAAFF

In mathematics, particularly matrix theory, a Stieltjes matrix, named after Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, is a real symmetric positive definite matrix with nonpositive off-diagonal entries. A Stieltjes matrix is necessarily an M-matrix.

Every n×n Stieltjes matrix is invertible to a nonsingular symmetric nonnegative matrix, though the converse of this statement is not true in general for n > 2.

From the above definition, a Stieltjes matrix is a symmetric invertible Z-matrix whose eigenvalues have positive real parts. As it is a Z-matrix, its off-diagonal entries are less than or equal to zero.