Talk:Felix Klein

Brill
Who is this guy Brill on this page? Is he an ancestor of Dieter Brill? Polvadera (talk) 17:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No. Alexander Wilhelm von Brill 1842-1935


 * Why do I think so? Felix Klein MacTutor Biography says "There he, and his colleague Brill, taught advanced courses to large numbers of excellent students" --Rmasta (talk) 10:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I created page for Brill and added some information there. Feel free to add. --Rmasta (talk) 11:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

A few things missing
I just added a link to the Klein model article in the "see also" section. But it is not mentioned in the article. Its intersting because the article about Eugenio Beltrami claims he was the first to come up with that model of hiperbollic geometry, and still, we call it Klein model. If some one could check this, it could be helpful. Mandril oco (talk) 20:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking there is nothing on Kaluza-Klein theory on this page. If not, there really should be. It's now considered a highly-influential precursor to string theory. Andrewthomas10 (talk) 23:21, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Geheimrat
Should the article mention that Klein bore the title of Geheimrat? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * klein is a jewish surname.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.114.194.182 (talk) 07:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * 'Klein' just means 'little'. I don't think in Germany the name would be considered characteristically Jewish. I've just been reading Constance Reid's biography of David Hilbert, which frequently mentions Klein, but there is no suggestion that he was Jewish.  People named Klein in the USA or Britain may often be Jewish, but of course people who emigrated from Germany in the 1930s were disproportionately Jewish, for obvious reasons.  In Nazi times Hilbert himself was sometimes accused/suspected of being Jewish, but an elaborate investigation found no Jewish ancestry.2A00:23C8:7907:4B01:E529:7B49:2303:8611 (talk) 17:12, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Jewish?
According to the Jewish Mathematics book, a 1936 right wing German newspaper wrote that he was 'Aryan', and that the Jewish Encyclopedia and other Jewish sources where using the name because "It is well known that the Jews love to stamp famous men as Jewish, in order to increase the prestige of their people".

But the same book tells of a 20 page memorandum from 1933, sent to the Bavarian ministry of interior by Hugo Dingler, showing how the Jews "infiltrated" and dominated the fields of physics and math since being allowed to participate in those studies in 1869. The head of this conspiracy, according to Dingler was Felix Klein who "at least from one side of his family, was Jewish".

Another article about the Jewish question can be found in The Mathematical Intelligencer with the title: Felix Klein, Adolf Hurwitz and the Jewish Question.

In a Hebrew article Jewish Mathematicians in Gottingen in the Tel Aviv University periodical Zmanim, by Leo Corry, it turns out that a Nazi student of Klein, wishing to rehabilitate his teacher's fame, found a 1889 address of Klein during a visit of his to the US, in which it is made clear that it was Klein himself who proposed that differences in the way of thought, and specifically trends of theory in the field of mathematics is caused by differences of race - Jewish vs. German.

According to Corry, this student wished to show that Klein was one of the originators of the Nazi ideology, thus clearing him of suspicion.

In the same article, two letters are mentioned. One from Klein to Adolf Hurwitz in 1892, stating that there would be a problem accepting Hurwitz to Gottingen, "although it disgusts me to even mention this" ... for being a Jew. And a letter from the Jewish mathematician Paul Gordon stating "Hilbert deserves your recommendation, but you are lucky that it was not accepted... you would be taking full responsibility for 'that Jew', every mistake of his, true or fake, would be on your head.

The article claims and proves that Klein was simply open minded, and wished to bring in a diverse blend of researchers and lecturers, the reason for accepting women (Amy Noether) and Jews, as opposed to other academies in Germany. It would be interesting to find out more. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 14:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Just in case the statement above According to the Jewish Mathematics book, a 1936 right wing German newspaper wrote that he was 'Aryan', and that the Jewish Encyclopedia and other Jewish sources where using the name because "It is well known that the Jews love to stamp famous men as Jewish, in order to increase the prestige of their people". has any meaning whatsoever, could whoever wrote it kindly rewrite it in coherent English?Daqu (talk) 03:57, 3 August 2014 (UTC)


 * P.S. As regards the statement Another article about the Jewish question can be found . . .: What exactly is "the Jewish question"? Such phrasing has certainly been used in anti-semitic literature in the past. But this is the present. What does that mean?Daqu (talk) 03:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Tautological statement
In the section Function theory, a sentence reads:

"Klein showed that the modular group moves the fundamental region of the complex plane so as to tessellate that plane."

This sentence is almost tautological, since that's what a group acting on a space does to a fundamental domain. So, it conveys virtually no information. It should be rephrased to be more informative.Daqu (talk) 03:51, 3 August 2014 (UTC)