Hermann Schubert

Hermann Schubert (1848 to 1911) was a German mathematician who spent his working life as a school teacher in Hamburg and became one of the leading figures in enumerative geometry, the part of algebraic geometry that counts the finite number of solutions to geometric problems. Born in Potsdam, he took his doctorate at the University of Halle in 1870 and taught at the Andreanum Gymnasium in Hildesheim before moving to the Johanneum in Hamburg, where he stayed even after turning down offers of university chairs. In 1874 he won the gold medal of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences for solving a question posed by Zeuthen on cubic space curves. Building on methods of Chasles, and taking Schroeder's logical calculus as a model, he set up a systematic calculus of counting that he based on the principle of conservation of number, and Schubert calculus now carries his name. He also edited the Sammlung Schubert textbook series, wrote popular books on recreational mathematics, and was the target of a bitter satire by Gottlob Frege.