Teiji Takagi
Encyclopedia
Teiji Takagi was a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, best known for proving the Takagi existence theorem
Takagi existence theorem
In class field theory, the Takagi existence theorem states that for any number field K there is a one-to-one inclusion reversing correspondence between the finite abelian extensions of K and the generalized ideal class groups defined via a modulus of K.It is called an existence theorem because a...

 in class field theory
Class field theory
In mathematics, class field theory is a major branch of algebraic number theory that studies abelian extensions of number fields.Most of the central results in this area were proved in the period between 1900 and 1950...

.

He was born in the mountainous and rural region of Gifu
Gifu Prefecture
is a prefecture located in the Chūbu region of central Japan. Its capital is the city of Gifu.Located in the center of Japan, it has long played an important part as the crossroads of Japan, connecting the east to the west through such routes as the Nakasendō...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. He began learning mathematics in middle school, reading texts in English since none were available in Japanese. After attending a high school for gifted students , he went on to the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

, at that time the only university in Japan. There he learned mathematics from such European classic texts as Salmon
George Salmon
The Reverend George Salmon was an Irish mathematician and theologian. His publications in algebraic geometry were widely read in the second half of the 19th century, but he devoted himself mostly to theology for the last forty years of his life...

's Algebra and Weber's Lehrbuch der Algebra. Aided by Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...

, he then studied at Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...

. Aside from his work in algebraic number theory
Algebraic number theory
Algebraic number theory is a major branch of number theory which studies algebraic structures related to algebraic integers. This is generally accomplished by considering a ring of algebraic integers O in an algebraic number field K/Q, and studying their algebraic properties such as factorization,...

 he wrote a great number of Japanese textbooks on mathematics and geometry.

He was also instrumental during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in the development of Japanese encryption systems; see Purple.

External links

  • Takagi Lectures by the Mathematical Society of Japan
    Mathematical Society of Japan
    The Mathematical Society of Japan was the first academic society in Japan.In 1877, the organization was establisehd as the Tokyo Sugaku Kaisha. It was re-organized and re-established in its present form in 1946....

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