The Riemann-Roch theorem and geometry, 1854-1914 (Q1126883)

The famous theorem, originally on the number of linearly independent holomorphic integrands of certain type on a Riemann surface (or algebraic curves) was discovered by Riemann in 1857 and proved more precisely by Roch in 1865 (one year before both of them died). The subsequent history of the theorem is seen here as an instructive example of how a mathematical result stays alive and becomes fruitful by admitting many interpretations. Clebsch, though initially finding it difficult to understand and then putting algebraic rigor into the foreground, after his death in 1872 left behind a group of mathematicians who eventually became custodians of the theorem. Brill and (Max) Noether held that Riemann's form of the theorem was foreign to geometry, and went out to simplify the geometric approach of Clebsch and Gordan. The theorem was to be studied in terms of a linear family of adjoint curves. Klein advocated a return to the analytic spirit of Riemann. Dedekind and Weber (1882) and then Hensel and Landsberg (1902) and Jung (1909) studied algebraic curves via their associated function fields, connecting the theorem with the arithmetic tradition. In 1907 Poincaré and Koebe opened another route by the uniformization theorem and Fuchsian theory. In 1886 Noether had sketched a Riemann-Roch theorem for algebraic surfaces. Already in 1881 Veronese had initiated his approach to surfaces which, together with Kraus and Klein, led C. Segre to an algebro-geometrical conception of the theorem, using projective geometry since the 1890s. Enriques and Castelnuovo developed deep relations of Riemann-Roch-Theorems with the theory of algebraic surfaces. Their Encyklopädie article of 1914 presented the method of birational transformations.