Weierstrass

Abstract

These lectures by Weierstrass on the calculus of variations were written up by a number of his students and were made available in the Mathematische Verein in Berlin and the Mathematische Lesezimmer in Göttingen. They were given by Weierstrass during the summer semesters of 1875, 1879, and 1882 and represent his contributions to the field.¹ The editor, Rothe, compiled his text principally from lecture notes prepared by Burckhardt based on the 1882 summer-semester lectures and from those by Schwarz. Since these lectures were not formally published, presumably they did not reach the entire mathematical community; as a result, much went on in our subject without reference to this monumental achievement of Weierstrass. In fact, Weierstrass’s result became known in considerable measure through the dissertations of his students.