mathematics

Wolfgang Doeblin

Wolfgang Doeblin is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wolfgang Doeblin rather than just read about it. In short: Wolfgang Doeblin, known in France as Vincent Doblin (17 March 1915 – 21 June 1940), was a French-German mathematician. Life A native of Berlin, Wolfgang was the son of the Jewish-German novelist and physician, Alfred Döblin, and Erna Reiss.

Key takeaways

Wolfgang Doeblin belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wolfgang Doeblin to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wolfgang Doeblin from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wolfgang Doeblin, known in France as Vincent Doblin (17 March 1915 – 21 June 1940), was a French-German mathematician.

Life A native of Berlin, Wolfgang was the son of the Jewish-German novelist and physician, Alfred Döblin, and Erna Reiss. His family escaped from Nazi Germany to France where he became a French citizen. Studying probability theory at the Université de Paris under Fréchet, he quickly made a name for himself as a gifted theorist. He received his doctorate at age 23. Drafted in November 1938, after refusing to be exempted from military service, he was a soldier in the French army when World War II broke out in 1939, and was stationed at Givet, in the Ardennes, as a telephone operator. There, he wrote down his latest work on the Chapman–Kolmogorov equation, and sent this as a "pli cacheté" (sealed envelope) to the French Academy of Sciences. His company, sent to the sector of the Saare on the ligne Maginot in April 1940, was caught in the German attack in the Ardennes in May, withdrew to the Vosges, and capitulated on 22 June 1940. Finding himself cut off from his unit and with Wehrmacht troops approaching to take him prisoner, Doeblin burned his mathematical notes and then shot himself on 21 June in a barn near the village of Housseras (a small village near Epinal) in the Vosges. He was initially buried as an unknown soldier in the village cemetery; identification of his remains not taking place until 1944. Following their deaths his parents were buried in Housseras beside him in 1957.

Legacy The sealed envelope was opened in 2000, revealing that Doeblin had obtained major results on the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation and the theory of diffusion processes. His life was the subject of a 2007 movie by Agnes Handwerk and Harrie Willems, A Mathematician Rediscovered. When he became a French citizen in 1938, he chose the official name of Vincent Doblin. However, he later chose to sign his papers as Wolfgang Doeblin and it is under this name that all his mathematical papers and professional letters were published.

Notes

References O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Wolfgang Doeblin", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews Wolfgang Doeblin at the Mathematics Genealogy Project Bru, Bernard; Yor, Marc (January 2002), "Comments on the life and mathematical legacy of Wolfgang Doeblin", Finance and Stochastics, 6 (1), Berlin / Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag: 3–47, doi:10.1007/s780-002-8399-0, MR 1885582, S2CID 16935900 Bernard Bru, Marc Yor: La vie de W. Doeblin, Lettre de l'Académie des sciences, no. 2, 2001 Marc Petit: Die verlorene Gleichung. Auf der Suche nach Wolfgang und Alfred Döblin ("L'équation de Kolmogoroff"). Eichborn, Frankfurt/M. 2005, ISBN 3-8218-5749-8 Ellinghaus, Jürgen / Ferry, Hubert: La lettre scellée du soldat Doblin / Der versiegelte Brief des Soldaten Döblin, TV documentary, 2006, ARTE/RBB [1] Archived 2013-11-02 at the Wayback Machine. VoD (French or German version): [2] Archived 2016-04-03 at the Wayback Machine. Ellinghaus, Jürgen / Gardini, Aldo: Die Irrfahrt des Soldaten Döblin Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, audiobook, ed. Stiftung Radio Basel, Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel, 2007.

External links Wolfgang Doeblin: a mathematician rediscovered Archived 2008-10-28 at the Wayback Machine

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wolfgang Doeblin

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wolfgang Doeblin claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wolfgang Doeblin before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wolfgang Doeblin ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wolfgang Doeblin

In research: Wolfgang Doeblin appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wolfgang Doeblin in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wolfgang Doeblin is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1915 births, 1940 deaths, 1940 suicides, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wolfgang Doeblin outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wolfgang Doeblin in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wolfgang Doeblin means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wolfgang Doeblin out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wolfgang Doeblin in simple terms?

Wolfgang Doeblin, known in France as Vincent Doblin (17 March 1915 – 21 June 1940), was a French-German mathematician. Life A native of Berlin, Wolfgang was the son of the Jewish-German novelist and physician, Alfred Döblin, and Erna Reiss.

Why does Wolfgang Doeblin matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wolfgang Doeblin?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wolfgang Doeblin.