The Hausdorff Center for Mathematics is a research institute in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, supported by the four mathematical institutes of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Mathematical Institute, Institute for Applied Mathematics, Institute for Numerical Simulation, Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics), the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics (MPI) and the Institute for Social and Economic Sciences. It was founded as one of the seventeen national Clusters of Excellence that were part of the German government's Excellence Initiative

German Universities Excellence Initiative

The Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Research Foundation aims to promote cutting-edge research and to create outstanding conditions for young scientists at universities, to deepen cooperation between disciplines and institutions, to...

. It is the only cluster of excellence in the area of mathematics in Germany. On 13 October, 2006, the proposal of the scientists in Bonn was approved. The centre was officially opened with a colloquium on 19 and 20 January, 2007.

Altogether, about 50 professors from Bonn form part of the centre: all professors for Mathematics, of the MPI and for Theoretical Economy. Among them, there are the director of the MPI, Gerd Faltings

Gerd Faltings

Gerd Faltings is a German mathematician known for his work in arithmetic algebraic geometry.From 1972 to 1978, he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Münster. In 1978 he received his PhD in mathematics and in 1981 he got the venia legendi in mathematics, both from the University...

, who was awarded the Fields medal

Fields Medal

The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...

 in 1986, and Reinhard Selten

Reinhard Selten

-Life and career:Selten was born in Breslau in Lower Silesia, now in Poland, to a Jewish father, Adolf Selten, and Protestant mother, Käthe Luther. For his work in game theory, Selten won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences...

, who was awarded the nobel prize in economics

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, but officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel , is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, generally regarded as one of the...

 for his research in Game Theory

Game theory

Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...

.

The centre is named after the mathematician Felix Hausdorff

Felix Hausdorff

Felix Hausdorff was a Jewish German mathematician who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed significantly to set theory, descriptive set theory, measure theory, function theory, and functional analysis.-Life:Hausdorff studied at the University of Leipzig,...

(born 8 November 1868; died 26 January 1942).

Sources

• Introduction (German Introduction on the Internetsite of the Hausdorff Center)

External links