Axel Thue

For other uses, see Axel Thue (actor).

Axel Thue (Norwegian: [tʉː]; 19 February 1863 – 7 March 1922) was a Norwegian mathematician, known for his original work in diophantine approximation and combinatorics.

Axel Thue
Axel Thue (1863-1922)
Born	(1863-02-19)19 February 1863 Tønsberg, Norway
Died	7 March 1922(1922-03-07) (aged 59) Oslo, Norway
Nationality	Norwegian
Alma mater	University of Kristiania
Known for	Thue equation Thue problem Thue's lemma Thue's theorem Thue–Morse sequence Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem Prouhet–Thue–Morse constant
Awards	Fridtjof Nansen Prize (1913)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematician
Institutions	University of Kristiania Trondheim Technical College
Thesis	(1889)
Doctoral advisor	Elling Holst
Doctoral students	Thoralf Skolem

Work

Thue published his first important paper in 1909.^[1]

He stated in 1914 the so-called word problem for semigroups or Thue problem, closely related to the halting problem.^[2]

His only known PhD student was Thoralf Skolem.

The esoteric programming language Thue is named after him.

Publications

• Thue, A. (1909), "Über Annäherungswerte algebraischer Zahlen", Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, 1909 (135): 284–305, doi:10.1515/crll.1909.135.284, ISSN 0075-4102, S2CID 125903243
• Thue, A. (1977) [1912], "Über die gegenseitige Lage gleicher Teile gewisser Zeichenreihen", Selected Math. Papers of Axel Thue, Universiteitsforlaget: 67

See also

• Thue equation – Diophantine equation involving an irreducible bivariate form of deg > 2 over the rationals
• Thue number – graph invariantPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Thue's lemma – Representation of modular integers by "small" fractions
• Semi-Thue system – String rewriting system
• Thue–Morse sequence – Infinite binary sequence generated by repeated complementation and concatenation
• Roth's theorem – Algebraic numbers are not near many rationals
• Plastic ratio – Number, approximately 1.3247
• Word problem for groups – Problem in finite group theory