Mathematische Werke / Mathematical Works (Q4452886)

Among differential and algebraic geometers, Erich Kähler is widely known for his paper ``Über eine bemerkenswerte Hermitesche Metrik'' [Abh. Math. Semin. Hamb. Univ. 9, 173--186 (1932; Zbl 0005.41301; JFM 58.0780.02)], the birth certificate of what is now called ``Kähler geometry''. Maybe it is less known that Kähler was born in 1906, hence wrote this paper at the age of 26-27. He passed away in 2001, but he never came back to this topic. In his long activity (his last paper, ``Raum-Zeit-Individuum'' was published in 1992, but there also exists a private printing of ``Vom Relativen zum Absoluten'' from 16 Jan. 1998), he focused mainly on arithmetic geometry (a whole volume of Annali di Matematica hosts his 399 pages paper ``Geometria aritmetica'') and on the theory of PDEs (today known as Cartan-Kähler theory). As most of the great scientific spirits, Kähler felt the need to reflect on the transcendental implications of science. In a series of papers (e.g. ``Il regno delle idee'', ``Saggio di una dinamica della vita'') he tried to address theological problems from a mathematical viewpoint; the importance of this attempt is still to be judged. This beautiful volume gathers the main scientific and philosophical papers of Kähler (anastatic reproduction). For lack of space, only the introduction of ``Geometria aritmetica'' is reproduced) and -- excellent idea of the editors! -- completes them with several comments which are, in themselves, important papers. After a biographical sketch by R. Berndt and A. Bohm, a comprehensive ``Survey of Kähler's mathematical work and some comments'', by R. Berndt and O. Riemenschneider gives a very detailed and pertinent overview on Kähler's scientific contributions. There are also extremely interesting punctual comments: ``A tribute to Erich Kähler'' by S. S. Chern puts Kähler's work on PDEs into its natural framework, W.D. Neumann writes about the ``Topology of hypersurface singularities'', J.-P. Bourguignon offers a state-of-the-art of Kähler geometry and H. Nicolai speaks about its connections with supersymmetry and other physical theories, I. Ekeland shows that Cartan-Kähler theory is applied also in economics, R. Berndt writes about the applications of Kähler differentials in arithmetic geometry while E. Kunz explains ``Why ``Kähler'' differentials'', J.-B. Bost throws some light on ``A neglected aspect of Kähler's work on arithmetic geometry: birational invariants of algebraic varieties over number fields'', Kähler's Zeta function is discussed separately by R. Berndt and A Deitmar, ``Eisenstein series on Kähler's Poincaré group'' is presented by A. Krieg, and finally R. Berndt and K. Maurin explain, in separate articles, some of Kähler's philosophical themes. Kähler was one of the few mathematicians who could see his name when opening randomly almost any issue of a mathematical journal. Speaking about the paper on ``Kähler geometry'', the editors say in the Preface: ``However, this is just a small part of Kähler's many outstanding achievements, which only specialists may be acquainted with. We hope that this volume will disseminate his ideas to a broader audience.'' I have no doubts it will.