Oskar Perron

Oskar Perron
Perron in 1948 Photo courtesy MFO
Born	(1880-05-07)7 May 1880 Frankenthal
Died	22 February 1975(1975-02-22) (aged 94) Munich
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Munich
Known for	Perron's paradox Perron effect Perron's formula Perron integral Perron method Perron number Perron tree Perron's irreducibility criterion Perron–Frobenius theorem Moessner's theorem
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Heidelberg University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Ferdinand von Lindemann
Doctoral students	Helmut Röhrl Georgi Bradistilov

Oskar Perron (7 May 1880 – 22 February 1975) was a German mathematician.

He was a professor at the University of Heidelberg from 1914 to 1922 and at the University of Munich from 1922 to 1951. He made numerous contributions to differential equations and partial differential equations, including the Perron method to solve the Dirichlet problem for elliptic partial differential equations. He wrote an encyclopedic book on continued fractions Die Lehre von den Kettenbrüchen. He introduced Perron's paradox to illustrate the danger of assuming that the solution of an optimization problem exists:

Let N be the largest positive integer. If N > 1, then N² > N, contradicting the definition of N. Hence N = 1.