Carl Jensen Burrau

Carl Jensen Burrau was a Danish mathematician who worked on problems relating to physics and astronomy while also working as an actuary. He was born on 29 July 1867 in Helsingør (Elsinore) and died on 8 October 1944. He was educated at Copenhagen University and worked as an astronomy assistant at the university observatory from 1893 to 1898. His dissertation of 1895 examined methods of identifying constants from photographs of star positions using Bessel's classic method. He is known for his work on a three-body problem, which examines the orbits of two equal masses revolving about each other, and his collaboration with Thiele led to the Thiele-Burrau method. He then turned to actuarial mathematics, writing the book Forsikringsstatistikens Grundlag in 1925, and taught applied mathematics at the University of Copenhagen.