Felix Bernstein (mathematician)


Felix Bernstein, was a German Jewish mathematician known for proving in 1896 the Schröder–Bernstein theorem, a central result in set theory, and less well known for demonstrating in 1924 the correct blood group inheritance pattern of multiple alleles at one locus through statistical analysis.

Life

Felix Bernstein was born in 1878 to a Jewish family of academics. His father Julius held the Chair of Physiology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, and was the Director of the Physiological Institute at the University of Halle.
While still in gymnasium in Halle, Bernstein heard the university seminar of Georg Cantor, who was a friend of Bernstein's father.
From 1896 to 1900, Bernstein studied in Munich, Halle, Berlin and Göttingen.
In the early Weimar Republic, Bernstein temporarily was Göttingen vice-chairman of the German Democratic Party.
In 1933,
after Hitler's rise to power, Bernstein was deprived from his chair, per §6 of the Nazi Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, often used against politically unpopular persons.
He received the message of his dismissal during a research/lecturing journey to the United States, and he stayed there.
In 1948, Bernstein retired from teaching in the USA, and returned to Europe.
He mainly lived in Rome and Freiburg, occasionally visiting Göttingen, where he became professor emeritus.
He died of cancer in Zurich on 3 December 1956.

Publications

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