Erich Hecke

Erich Hecke (20 September 1887 – 13 February 1947) was a German mathematician. He obtained his doctorate in Göttingen under the supervision of David Hilbert. Kurt Reidemeister and Heinrich Behnke were among his students.

Erich Hecke
Photo courtesy of MFO
Born	(1887-09-20)20 September 1887 Buk, Province of Posen, German Empire
Died	13 February 1947(1947-02-13) (aged 59) Copenhagen, Denmark
Alma mater	University of Göttingen
Known for	Hecke algebra Hecke operator
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Doctoral advisor	David Hilbert
Notable students	Kurt Reidemeister Heinrich Behnke Hans Petersson

Hecke was born in Buk, Posen, Germany (now Poznań, Poland), and died in Copenhagen, Denmark. His early work included establishing the functional equation for the Dedekind zeta function, with a proof based on theta functions. The method extended to the L-functions associated to a class of characters now known as Hecke characters or idele class characters; such L-functions are now known as Hecke L-functions. He devoted most of his research to the theory of modular forms, creating the general theory of cusp forms (holomorphic, for GL(2)), as it is now understood in the classical setting.

He was a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1936 in Oslo.[1]