Ludvig Oppermann

Ludvig Henrik Ferdinand Oppermann (1817-1883) was a Danish mathematician and philologist. He is remembered for formulating Oppermann's conjecture on the distribution of prime numbers, an unsolved problem that is stronger than, and closely related to, Legendre's, Andrica's and Brocard's conjectures. According to the sources he announced it in an unpublished lecture in 1877. His own published work ranged widely over applied mathematics: geodesy and land surveying, interpolation formulae, quadrature, the theory of errors and the method of least squares, and the mathematics of life insurance, life annuities and the graduation of mortality tables. Some of these early actuarial discoveries were later discussed under the heading of a reticent trio of Danish workers alongside T. N. Thiele and J. P. Gram, who wrote an obituary of him in 1883.