Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (German: [ləˈʒœn diʀiˈkleː];[1] 13 February

1805 – 5 May 1859) was a German mathematician who made deep contributions to number
theory (including creating the field of analytic number theory), and to the theory
of Fourier series and other topics in mathematical analysis; he is credited with
being one of the first mathematicians to give the modern formal definition of a
function.

Although his official surname is Lejeune Dirichlet, he is commonly referred to as

just Dirichlet, particularly for the eponym.

Early life (1805–1822)

Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was born on 13 February 1805 in Düren, a town on the left
bank of the Rhine which at the time was part of the First French Empire, reverting
to Prussia after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. His father Johann Arnold Lejeune
Dirichlet was the postmaster, merchant, and city councilor. His paternal
grandfather had come to Düren from Richelette (or more likely Richelle), a small
community 5 km north east of Liège in Belgium, from which his surname "Lejeune
Dirichlet" ("le jeune de Richelette", French for "the youth from Richelette") was
derived.[2]

Although his family was not wealthy and he was the youngest of seven children, his
parents supported his education. They enrolled him in an elementary school and then
private school in hope that he would later become a merchant. The young Dirichlet,
who showed a strong interest in mathematics before age 12, persuaded his parents to
allow him to continue his studies. In 1817 they sent him to the Gymnasium Bonn [de]
under the care of Peter Joseph Elvenich, a student his family knew. In 1820
Dirichlet moved to the Jesuit Gymnasium in Cologne, where his lessons with Georg
Ohm helped widen his knowledge in mathematics. He left the gymnasium a year later
with only a certificate, as his inability to speak fluent Latin prevented him from
earning the Abitur.[2]
Studies in Paris (1822–26)

Dirichlet again persuaded his parents to provide further financial support for his
studies in mathematics, against their wish for a career in law. As Germany provided
little opportunity to study higher mathematics at the time, with only Gauss at the
University of Göttingen who was nominally a professor of astronomy and anyway
disliked teaching, Dirichlet decided to go to Paris in May 1822. There he attended
classes at the Collège de France and at the University of Paris, learning
mathematics from Hachette among others, while undertaking private study of Gauss's
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, a book he kept close for his entire life. In 1823 he
was recommended to General Maximilien Foy, who hired him as a private tutor to
teach his children German, the wage finally allowing Dirichlet to become
independent from his parents' financial support.[3]

His first original research, comprising part of a proof of Fermat's last theorem
for the case n=5, brought him immediate fame, being the first advance in the
theorem since Fermat's own proof of the case n=4 and Euler's proof for n=3. Adrien-
Marie Legendre, one of the referees, soon completed the proof for this case;
Dirichlet completed his own proof a short time after Legendre, and a few years
later produced a full proof for the case n=14.[4] In June 1825 he was accepted to
lecture on his partial proof for the case n=5 at the French Academy of Sciences, an
exceptional feat for a 20-year-old student with no degree.[2] His lecture at the
Academy had also put Dirichlet in close contact with Fourier and Poisson, who
raised his interest in theoretical physics, especially Fourier's analytic theory of
heat.

Back to Prussia, Breslau (1825–28)

As General Foy died in November 1825 and he could not find any paying position in
France, Dirichlet had to return to Prussia. Fourier and Poisson introduced him to
Alexander von Humboldt, who had been called to join the court of King Friedrich
Wilhelm III. Humboldt, planning to make Berlin a center of science and research,
immediately offered his help to Dirichlet, sending letters in his favour to the
Prussian government and to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Humboldt also secured
a recommendation letter from Gauss, who upon reading his memoir on Fermat's theorem
wrote with an unusual amount of praise that "Dirichlet showed excellent talent".[5]
With the support of Humboldt and Gauss, Dirichlet was offered a teaching position
at the University of Breslau. However, as he had not passed a doctoral
dissertation, he submitted his memoir on the Fermat theorem as a thesis to the
University of Bonn. Again his lack of fluency in Latin rendered him unable to hold
the required public disputation of his thesis; after much discussion, the
University decided to bypass the problem by awarding him an honorary doctorate in
February 1827. Also, the Minister of Education granted him a dispensation for the
Latin disputation required for the Habilitation. Dirichlet earned the Habilitation
and lectured in the 1827/28 year as a Privatdozent at Breslau.[2]

While in Breslau, Dirichlet continued his number theoretic research, publishing

important contributions to the biquadratic reciprocity law which at the time was a
focal point of Gauss's research. Alexander von Humboldt took advantage of these new
results, which had also drawn enthusiastic praise from Friedrich Bessel, to arrange
for him the desired transfer to Berlin. Given Dirichlet's young age (he was 23
years old at the time), Humboldt was only able to get him a trial position at the
Prussian Military Academy in Berlin while remaining nominally employed by the
University of Breslau. The probation was extended for three years until the
position becoming definitive in 1831.