Berlin in the 19th century (Q977999)

Summary: The triumvirate of Kronecker, Kummer, and Weierstrass dominated mathematics at Berlin in the second half of the 19th Century and made it for a time the leading place for mathematics in the world. Weierstrass in particular built up the new subject of analytic function theory into one the great success stories of the period. Yet the result of all their efforts was that Berlin was overtaken and Weierstrass' ideas as often marginalised as accepted. This article analyses how this disappointing outcome came about.