[UMA-SRE-20140141] Behrend Memorial Lecture in Mathematics

Description

IdentifierUMA-SRE-20140141Extent1 boxLinear Meterage0.08Scope and ContentEducated in Germany and of Jewish descent, Felix Adalbert Behrend pursued mathematical research at Cambridge, Zurich, Prague and finally in London, where, despite being passionately anti-Nazi, he was detained at the outbreak of war and interned as an enemy alien in 1940. He was put on the ship the Dunera bound for Australia and then served periods of internment at Hay, Orange and Tatura in Australia. He gave lecture courses at the Camp and prepared some of his younger fellow internees for mathematics examinations at the University of Melbourne. Until the end of 1941 he continued to instruct his fellow internees in a scientific programme that covered late-secondary and early-tertiary mathematics, physics, chemistry and medicine. He taught ordinary differential equations, elementary and advanced vector analysis, projective and differential geometry, complex analysis, and differential and integral calculus. Acting on advice from the Royal Society, London, the British Home Office authorized Behrend's release from internment. After his release in 1942, Behrend was appointed as a tutor at the University of Melbourne in the Mathematics Department. He was promoted to lecturer in the Mathematics Department of the University of Melbourne in 1943, then to senior lecturer in 1948, and finally to associate professor 1954-1962. He published sixteen of his twenty-five mathematical papers while in Australia. He worked on the distribution of prime numbers, using Lejeune Dirichlet's series, and on analysis, geometry (the ellipses bounding a given convex set within and without), algebraic equations, the foundations of mathematics and axiomatics. Most of his papers were short, only one exceeding twenty pages. He introduced modern general topology to the university and was an outstanding teacher. He died of a cerebral tumour on 27 May 1962 at Epworth Hospital, Richmond. The Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne hosts an annual public lecture in mathematics, dedicated to the memory of Felix Behrend. His wife Daisy provided £500 to the University to conduct a memorial to her late husband. The University suggested, and the donor agreed, that the endowment would be used for ‘founding a Behrend Memorial Lecture in Mathematics, to be given either annually or biennially’ in memory of the donor’s late husband (see UTR7.63). This series comprises one file and includes the following documents: Background information and notes regarding the Behrend Memorial Lecture; donation from Mrs Rose Behrend to found the Behrend Memorial Lecture and associated correspondence; draft for University Council Minute (remembrance note); obituary by T.M. Cherry and B.H. Neumann (reprinted from the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, Volume IV, Part 2, p.p. 264-270, 1964); and various obituaries for Associate Professor of Mathematics, Felix Adalbert Behrend (written by Thomas Cherry and others).Collection CategoryUniversity, officialAccess StatusOpen for public accessRequest Access to RecordsRequest records from this Series

Item

Unit

Provenance

CreatorDepartment Of Mathematics (The University of Melbourne)

Dates

Date1962-1963

Description Control

Previous System ID2014.0141Records Services IDUM1161State of ListFully listed

Relationships

Feature CollectionRecords of the University of Melbourne

University of Melbourne Archives

Archives

Menu

[UMA-SRE-20140141] Behrend Memorial Lecture in Mathematics