Hjalmar Mellin


Robert Hjalmar Mellin was a Finnish mathematician and functional theorist.

Biography

Mellin studied at the University of Helsinki and later in Berlin under Karl Weierstrass. He is chiefly remembered as the developer of the integral transform known as the Mellin transform. He was appointed professor at the Polytechnic Institute in Helsinki, which later became Helsinki University of Technology with Mellin as first rector.
Late in his career Mellin also became known for his critical opposition to the theory of relativity; he published several papers in which he argued against the theory from a chiefly philosophical standpoint. In his private life he was known as an outspoken fennoman: a proponent of adopting Finnish as the language of state and culture in the Grand Duchy of Finland, in preference to Swedish, which had predominantly been used hitherto.