The culture of research mathematics in 1860s Prussia: Adolph Mayer and the theory of the second variation in the calculus of variations (Q1711776)

The paper is three-partite, first discussing the conception of pure mathematics within neo-humanism in Prussia in the 19th century (drawing much on a paper by Gert Schubring of 1981 [``The conception of pure mathematics as an instrument in the professionalization of mathematics'', in: H. Mehrtens (ed.) et al., Social history of nineteenth century mathematics. Basel, Stuttgart: Birkhäuser. 111--134 (1981; \url{doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-9491-4_7}), see also Zbl 0467.01009]), then going into the Königsberg school of mathematics and the mathematical circle around Adolph Mayer (1839--1908, later at Leipzig), and finally investigating one of Mayer's major results in the calculus of variations. The latter was much based on a 1837 paper by another mathematician from Königsberg, C. Jacobi (1804--1851), and its reworking by Charles Delaunay (1816--1872) and Alfred Clebsch (1833--1872). The author argues that Mayer's habilitation thesis in Leipzig ``Beiträge zur Theorie der Maxima und Minima der einfachen Integrale'' (1866) was a key contribution to the study of the second variation and would later, particularly at the hands of David Hilbert, contribute to the field theory of the calculus of variations. At its time of publication and during the entire 19th century, however, due to the rather abstract and abstruse presentation (particularly in its shorter form of 1868 in Crelle's Journal [JFM 01.0121.01]) within the ``ivory tower'' of German cutting-edge research in mathematics, Mayer's contribution was not sufficiently appreciated. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1403.01006].