LOOKING BACKWARD: from EULER to RIEMANN 11 at the Age of 24
LOOKING BACKWARD: FROM EULER TO RIEMANN ATHANASE PAPADOPOULOS Il est des hommes auxquels on ne doit pas adresser d’´eloges, si l’on ne suppose pas qu’ils ont le goˆut assez peu d´elicat pour goˆuter les louanges qui viennent d’en bas. (Jules Tannery, [241] p. 102) Abstract. We survey the main ideas in the early history of the subjects on which Riemann worked and that led to some of his most important discoveries. The subjects discussed include the theory of functions of a complex variable, elliptic and Abelian integrals, the hypergeometric series, the zeta function, topology, differential geometry, integration, and the notion of space. We shall see that among Riemann’s predecessors in all these fields, one name occupies a prominent place, this is Leonhard Euler. The final version of this paper will appear in the book From Riemann to differential geometry and relativity (L. Ji, A. Papadopoulos and S. Yamada, ed.) Berlin: Springer, 2017. AMS Mathematics Subject Classification: 01-02, 01A55, 01A67, 26A42, 30- 03, 33C05, 00A30. Keywords: Bernhard Riemann, function of a complex variable, space, Rie- mannian geometry, trigonometric series, zeta function, differential geometry, elliptic integral, elliptic function, Abelian integral, Abelian function, hy- pergeometric function, topology, Riemann surface, Leonhard Euler, space, integration. Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Functions 10 3. Elliptic integrals 21 arXiv:1710.03982v1 [math.HO] 11 Oct 2017 4. Abelian functions 30 5. Hypergeometric series 32 6. The zeta function 34 7. On space 41 8. Topology 47 9. Differential geometry 63 10. Trigonometric series 69 11. Integration 79 12. Conclusion 81 References 85 Date: October 12, 2017.
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