Johann Jakob Burckhardt (13 July 1903 – 5 November 2006) was a Swiss mathematician and crystallographer. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1936 in Oslo.
Biography Johann Jakob Burckhardt was born on 13 July 1903 in Basel. He came from an old Basel family. His ancestors include a brother (Hieronimus) of Jacob Bernoulli and Johann Bernoulli. The son of a lawyer and legal advisor to the German consulate in Basel, J. J. Burckhardt attended in Basel the Gymnasium am Münsterplatz (the second oldest Gymnasium in Switzerland) and the Oberrealschule. In 1922, he matriculated at the University of Basel. He studied in 1923 in the summer semester at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, where Arnold Sommerfeld, Oskar Perron, Friedrich Hartogs and Wilhelm Wien taught, and in 1924 at the University of Hamburg, where Hans Rademacher and Erich Hecke taught. Inspired by reading Andreas Speiser's group theory textbook, which includes applications to crystallography and decorative ornaments, Burckhardt continued his studies in 1924 at the University of Zurich. There he heard lectures by Andreas Speiser, Rudolf Fueter, Erwin Schrödinger, and the astronomer Alfred Wolfer (1854–1931). At ETH Zurich Burckhardt listened to Hermann Weyl, George Pólya (whose seminar he attended), and the mineralogist Paul Niggli. Buckhardt also studied crystallography with Leonhard Weber (1883–1968). In 1927 Burckhardt passed the qualifying examination for teaching in higher education and received his doctorate in mathematics with advisor Andreas Speiser and thesis Die Algebren der Diedergruppen (The algebras of dihedral groups). In late 1927, he continued his studies at the University of Paris with Jacques Hadamard and then in 1928 at the University of Göttingen, where he attended the seminars of Emmy Noether and Richard Courant and heard Gustav Herglotz's lectures on geometry. At the University of Göttingen, he also met Bartel Leendert van der Waerden and Otto Neugebauer, both of whom later became well-known mathematicians. At the University of Zurich, van der Waerden and Burckhardt later became colleagues. Since he did not like the political climate with the advent of the National Socialists in Germany, he declined the offer of an assistant position in Göttingen and went back to Basel, where he was an assistant teacher at the lower Realschule. He then moved to the University of Zurich as Fueter's assistant. After Burckhardt habilitated in 1933 at the University of Zurich with the work Zur Theorie der Bewegungsgruppen (Theory of space groups), he was a Vertreter (visiting teacher) at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences/ZHAW and at the Höhere Töchterschule der Stadt Zürich (later renamed the Kantonsschule Hohe Promenade). He declined a professorship at the University of Cairo. In 1942, he was a Titularprofessor (honorary professor) at the University of Zurich. In 1943/1944 he was a Lehrstuhlvertreter (visiting professor) in the professorial chair of Otto Spiess (1878–1966) at the University of Basel. From 1945 until his retirement in 1970, Burckhardt was an Oberassistent (senior assistant) at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Zurich. Burckhardt died on 5 November 2006 in Zürich. Burckhardt was an honorary member of the Swiss Mathematical Society, of which he was the president from 1954 to 1955. He also served as the president of the Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Zürich. He was an avid hiker and mountaineer.
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