Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann

Born: 12 April 1852 in Hannover, Hanover (now Germany)
Died: 6 March 1939 in Munich, Germany

Ferdinand von Lindemann was the first to prove that p is transcendental, that is, p is not the root of any algebraic equation with rational coefficients.

His father, also named Ferdinand Lindemann, was a modern language teacher at the Gymnasium in Hannover at the time of his birth. His mother was Emilie Crusius, the daughter of the headmaster of the Gymnasium. When Ferdinand (the subject of this biography) was two years old his father was appointed as director of a gasworks in Schwerin. The family moved to that town where Ferdinand spent his childhood years and he attended school in Schwerin.

As was the standard practice of students in Germany in the second half of the 19th century, Lindemann moved from one university to another. He began his studies in G