Editorial

Lothar Collatz passed his first mathematics university exam in Berlin in 1933 supervised by Richard von Mises, who founded Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (ZAMM) in 1921. Since his graduation L. Collatz published short contributions [1-3] in ZAMM that summarized his presentations from the annual GAMM conferences. His first regular article appeared in ZAMM in 1935, right after the completion of his PhD [4]. In his long career (from obtaining his habilitation in 1937 in Karlsruhe, being a researcher in Karlsruhe and Darmstadt until 1943, when he received a professorship in Hannover and then from 1952 in Hamburg until his retirement 1978) he continuously published in ZAMM contributing over 35 articles.

Lothar Collatz (1910–1990, photography by Elfriede Liebenow)

His work had a major impact on the development of numerical mathematics, particularly by his supervision of 42 PhD students and his involvement in 24 habilitation procedures. Before he moved to Hamburg, all his positions were at Technical Universities. His research is closely related to applications of numerical mathematics in mechanics. Many of his contributions to ZAMM are directly motivated by specific computational engineering challenges for membranes, plates, and bars [2, 5-8] at a time well before the development of modern computers. His engagement for the collaboration of applied mathematics and mechanics was continuously embedded in his activities in GAMM: he was involved in both the organization and management of the GAMM society, especially as President from 1964 to 1966 [9]. With this issue's special anniversary article “Error bounds and enclosures: The development of numerical analysis and the impact of the contributions by Lothar Collatz” we celebrate and remember his work.