Hermann Grassmann

Hermann Grassmann
Hermann Grassmann
Born	Hermann Günther Grassmann; 15 April 1809; Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia; (present-day Szczecin, Poland)
Died	26 September 1877 (aged 68); Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Education	University of Berlin
Known for	Bivector; Color space; Grassmannian; Grassmann algebra; Grassmann number; Grassmann's law; Grassmann's laws;
Awards	PhD (Hon):; University of Tübingen (1876)
	Scientific career
Fields	Linguistics, mathematics
Workplaces	Stettin Gymnasium
Academic advisors	Friedrich Schleiermacher
Notable students	Paul Carus

1878 copy of Grassmann's "Die lineale Ausdehnungslehre" — 1878 copy of Grassmann's "*Die lineale Ausdehnungslehre*"

First page of "Die lineale Ausdehnungslehre" — First page of "*Die lineale Ausdehnungslehre*"

Hermann Günther Grassmann (German: Graßmann, pronounced [ˈhɛʁman ˈɡʏntɐ ˈɡʁasman]; 15 April 1809 – 26 September 1877) was a German polymath known in his day as a linguist and now also as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, general scholar, and publisher. His mathematical work was little noted until he was in his sixties. His work preceded and exceeded the concept which is now known as a vector space. He introduced the Grassmannian, the space which parameterizes all k-dimensional linear subspaces of an n-dimensional vector space V. In linguistics he helped free language history and structure from each other.