Hermann Graßmann
and theFoundations of Linear Algebra
Jörg Liesen (TU Berlin)
SIAM Conference
on Applied Linear AlgebraMonterey, CA, USA
October 2009

Graßmann Bicentennial ConferenceLeibniz envisions Linear Algebra in 1679
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz(1646-1716),
German polymath

Christiaan Huygens(1629-1695),
Dutch mathematician,astronomer, physicist

Leibniz to Huygens on September 8, 1679:“I am still not satisfied with algebra … I believe that, so far as
geometry is concerned, we need still another analysis which
is distinctly geometrical or linear and which will express situation
directly as algebra expresses magnitude directly.”

More on Leibniz’ vision
Leibniz added:“I believe that by this method one could treat
mechanics almost like geometry, and one could
even test the qualities of materials …
I have no hope that we can get very far in physics
until we have found such a method …”• Leibniz never discovered the “new method” he was envisioning.
• His letter to Huygens was published in 1833, and hence had little
influence on the historical development.
• By the 1830s, others were already working on “Linear Algebra”.

Möbius’ Barycentric Calculus (1827)
August Ferdinand Möbius(1790-1868),
German mathematicianand astronomer• One of the first systems in which geometricalentities (points) were operated on directly.
• Similar: Giusto Bellavitis’ (1803-1880) “Calculus of Equipollences”.
• Möbius showed how to add collinear line-segments, but gave noaddition rules for non-collinear segements and no multiplication.
• Such a system was first constructed by Hermann Graßmann.

Hermann Günther Graßmann (1809-1877)• Born April 15, 1809, in Stettin (Szczecin).
• His father Justus Graßmann, a gymnasium
teacher, was the first to invent a purely
geometrical product (“Raumlehre”, 1824).
• Hermann studied Theology and Philosophy inBerlin (1827-1830).
• Returned to Stettin to become a teacher, in thefootsteps of his father.
• Never had any formal education in Mathematics.
• Was outside the mathematical establishement all his life.
• From the early 1830s he worked on restructuring the foundations ofmathematics and he discovered “Linear Algebra”.
• His work “departed from all the then current mathematical traditions”(M. J. Crowe, A History of Vector Analysis, 1967).

The Ausdehnungslehre of 1844
• Graßmann’s first major work: The Ausdehnungslehre(Theory of Extension) of 1844.
• Heavily influenced by philosophical considerations.
A 12-page Preface (“Vorrede”) and a 16-page
Introduction (“Einleitung”) explained his approach.
“I had also realized that there must be a branchof mathematics which yields in a purely abstract
way laws similar to those that in geometry seembound to space.
I soon realized that I had come upon the domainof a new science of which geometry itself is only
a special application.”• His entirely abstract approach allowed him to consider new mathematicalideas such as n-dimensional spaces and noncommutative multiplication.
• The only comparable contemporary system: The quaternions of Sir William
Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865), discovered on Oct. 16, 1843.

A flavour of Graßmann’s writing(Ausdehnungslehre of 1844, § 20)“Every displacement of a system of m-th order can be represented asa sum of m displacements belonging to m given independent methodsof evolution of the system, the sum being unique for each such set.”(Translation: L. C. Kannenberg, 1995)

Reception of his contemporaries• The revolutionary content and the obscure style led to the“colossal neglect” (Crowe) of Graßmann’s work.
Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777-1855) to Graßmann in Dec. 1844:“… in order to discern the essential core of your work it is firstnecessary to become familiar with your special terminology. …
however that will require of me a time free of other duties …”

Möbius to Ernst Friedrich Appelt (1812-1859) in Jan. 1846:“… I have on numerous occasions attepmted to study it but
I have never gone beyond the first sheets …”

Friedrich Engel (1861-1941) in Gesammelte Werke, Band 3:“… the most painful experience for the author of a newwork: his book nowhere received attention;
the public was completely silent about it …”.

The second Ausdehnungslehre (1862)• Graßmann was convinced of his approach anddecided to rewrite his work.
• He finished the second version in October 1861.
• 300 copies were printed at his own expense in theshop of his brother Robert.
• Written entirely in definition-theorem-proof style;almost no philosophical remarks.

Some of the Linear Algebra content in modern terms(not all of these were firsts, but the completeness is striking):
theory of linear independence and dimension, exchange theorem, subspaces, join and meet ofsubspaces, projection of elements onto subspaces, change of coordinates, product structures
including inner and outer multiplication, solution of systems of linear equations, orthogonality,
linear transformations, matrix representation, rank-nullity theorem, eigenvalues and eigenspaces,characteristic polynomial, diagonalizability, primary decomposition theorem, law of inertia,
applications to differential equations and real analysis …
(D. Fearnley-Sanders, Amer. Moth. Monthly, 86 (1979), gives a brief summary.)

Example: Orthogonal bases
152. Two nonzero vectors are normal toone another if their inner product is zero.
153. A normal system of degree n isa collection of n mutually normal(nonzero) vectors of the same length.
154. A circular change of a collectionof vectors is a transformation where
two vectors, a and b, are respectively
replaced by xa+yb and ±(ya-xb),
with x2+y2=1.

[a1 , b1 ] = [a, b]∙cos αsin α− sin αcos α

• Graßmann then analyzed the use of the method of circular change totransform a normal system into other systems (bases of the vector space).
(History of orthogonalization in a nutshell: Laplace, 1816; Gram, 1883; Schmidt, 1907.)¸

Example: Linear transformations• Graßmann defined a linear transformation by the image vectros for a given basis.
• He called this a “fraction” or “quotient” and denoted it by

b1 , . . . , bn
Q=,a1 , . . . , a n

Qaj := bj , j = 1, . . . , n• Exchanging a basis vector, say a1 → â1 =Pn

j=1 αj aj , α1 6= 0,

so that â1 , a2 , . . . , an still form a basis, yields

b1 , b2 , . . . , bn
Q ==a1 , a2 , . . . , anPn

j=1 αj bj , b2 , . . . , bnâ1 , a2 , . . . , an.

The gradual acceptance• The 1862 Ausdehnungslehre initially was ignored, just as the 1844 version.
• Graßmann was disappointed, turned away from mathematics, andconcentrated on other subjects, in particular linguistics.
• By the late 1860s, his work slowly was being recognized by othermathematicians.
• Among the first of them was Hermann Hankel (1839-1873), a student ofBernhard Riemann (1826-1866).

“Roughly 10 percent of this book[of 1867] was devoted to Grassmann’ssystem, on which Hankel bestowed
much praise. Hankel’s book wasinfluential …”(M. J. Crowe, A History of Vector Analysis, 1967)

Major influences: Klein and Whitehead• Felix Klein (1849-1925) learned
about Graßmann from Hankel.
• He referred to Graßmann in hisfamous “Erlanger Programm” (1872).
• He played an important role in
the publication of Graßmann’s“Gesammelte Werke” (1894-1911).

• Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
investigated systems of symbolic
reasoning in his “Universal Algebra,
Volume 1” (1898).
• Graßmann’s calculus of extension wasa chief example.
(There never was a Volume 2: After the International
Congress in 1900, Whitehead and his student
Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) started working on
the “Principia Mathematica” (1902-1913).)

Major influences: Giuseppe Peano• Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932) was deeply influenced
by Graßmann.
• He gave his own version of Graßmann’s work in his“Geometric Calculus according to the Ausdehnungslehreof H. Grassmann” (1888).
• The book contains the first axiomatic definition of avector space.
“A first attempt at a geometric calculus was due to thegreat mind of Leibniz (1679); in the present century there
were proposed and developed various methods … among
which deserve special mention are the barycentric calculusof Möbius (1827), that of the equipollences of Bellavitis (1832),
the quaternions of Hamilton (1852), and the applications togeometry of the Ausdehnungslehre of Hermann Grassmann(1844).
Of these methods, the last cited to a great extend incorporates
the others and is superior in its powers of calculation and in
the simplicity of its formulas.”(Translation: L. C. Kannenberg, 1997)

Major “non-influences”: Matrix Theory• Graßmann had little to no impact in the development of matrix theory andin particular canonical forms.

Major “non-influences”: Relativity Theory• Matrix and vector calculus became widely used after 1910, when they weresuccessfully applied in Relativity Theory.
• Graßmann’s theory had little impact in that area.
Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909) in Dec. 1907:“One may think that, instead of Cayley’s matrix calculus,
Hamilton’s calculus of quaternions could be used, but it
seems to me that the latter is too narrow and clumsy forour purpose.”
Edwin Bidwell Wilson (Bull. AMS, 21 (1915)):“The analysis which is really appropriate to the theory ofrelativity as conceived by Minkowski is Grassmann’s. …
Is it not unfortunate that Minkowski should havefollowed the English Cayley, referred to the Scot-Irish
Hamilton, and ignored the Germann Grassmann?
Should not some Geheimer Regierungsrat among hiscolleagues have given him secret directions to avoid suchan unpatriotic scientific mésalliance?”

Concluding remarks• The field of Linear Algebra developed historically in a very non-linear way
because of the lack of unification:“The same author could use the same idea twice (in terms of the theoryof linear algebra) in different contexts without noticing the similarity ofthe methods.” (J.-L. Dorier, Historia Math., 22 (1995))• Peano’s axiomatic definition of a vector space (1888) remained largely
unknown until Hermann Weyl stated it in the context of Relativity Theory
in 1918 (referring only to Graßmann’s “epoch making work”).
• In the late 1920s axiomatization finally unified the field, which nowadays
holds a central position in Mathematics.
• Many of Graßmann’s Linear Algebra results were reestablished independently
by others and now are associated with them (e.g. Steinitz’ Exchange Thm.).
• His methods have been revived in the 20th century by the French school(Élie Cartan, Bourbaki), and his name today is attached to objects in Algebra(Grassmann algebra) and Differential Geometry (Grassmann manifold
or Grassmanian).

“One of the supreme
landmarks in the historyof the human mind.”(George Sarton)“A great classic in thehistory of mathematics,
even though one of themost unreadable classics.”(Michael J. Crowe)