Alfred Clebsch

Rudolf Friedrich Alfred Clebsch (19 January 1833 – 7 November 1872) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to algebraic geometry and invariant theory. He attended the University of Königsberg and was habilitated at Berlin. He subsequently taught in Berlin and Karlsruhe. His collaboration with Paul Gordan in Giessen led to the introduction of Clebsch–Gordan coefficients for spherical harmonics, which are now widely used in quantum mechanics.

Alfred Clebsch
Rudolf Friedrich Alfred Clebsch
Born	(1833-01-19)19 January 1833 Königsberg, Prussia
Died	7 November 1872(1872-11-07) (aged 39) Göttingen, Prussia
Alma mater	University of Königsberg
Known for	Clebsch graph Clebsch representation Clebsch surface Clebsch–Gordan coefficients Legendre–Clebsch condition
Awards	Prix Poncelet (1868)[1]
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Göttingen
Thesis	De motu ellipsoidis in fluido incompressibili viribus quibuslibet impulsi
Doctoral advisor	Franz Ernst Neumann
Doctoral students	Alexander von Brill
Other notable students	Gottlob Frege

Together with Carl Neumann at Göttingen, he founded the mathematical research journal Mathematische Annalen in 1868.

In 1883, Saint-Venant translated Clebsch's work on elasticity into French and published it as Théorie de l'élasticité des Corps Solides.

Books

• Vorlesungen über Geometrie (Teubner, Leipzig, 1876-1891) edited by Ferdinand Lindemann.
• Théorie der binären algebraischen Formen (Teubner, 1872)
• Theorie der Abelschen Functionen with P. Gordan (B. G. Teubner, 1866)
• Theorie der Elasticität fester Körper (B. G. Teubner, 1862)

See also

• Clebsch graph
• Clebsch representation
• Clebsch surface
• Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
• Helmholtz equation
• Hyperboloid model
• Pentagram map
• Quaternary cubic