University of Erlangen–Nuremberg

History

18th century

The university was founded in 1742 as Academia Fridericiana in Bayreuth by Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. On February 21, 1743, it was granted university status by Charles VII. Alongside the universities in Altdorf and Würzburg, Friedrich University was the third university in the Franconian region. In November 1743, it was relocated to Erlangen and housed in the premises of the former Knight Academy on Erlanger Hauptstraße. From the outset, the entire traditional range of subjects—theology, law, medicine, and philosophy—was taught, although the number of students in the early days remained consistently below 200. The first chancellor of the institution, which had only modest resources at its disposal, was the physician Daniel de Superville.

In 1769, responsibility for the university fell to Christian Frederick Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, who provided significant support to the early university and therefore became the university's second namesake.

The Margrave of Ansbach-Bayreuth's privy councilor and Royal Prussian minister to the Franconian Circle, Karl Wilhelm, Baron Buirette von Oehlefeld (1724–1782), Lord of the Wilhelmsdorf Manor, bequeathed a foundation of over 20,000 guilders to the university in his will. As the arrangements for this had already been made with the Margrave, the latter awarded Buirette the highly coveted Grand Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle.

19th century

After the city of Erlangen was transferred to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810, the university only narrowly managed to avoid closure – unlike the University of Nuremberg in Altdorf – because it was the only Bavarian state university to have a Lutheran theological faculty going forward. It was therefore indispensable for the training of Protestant theologians in the new state. The university remained Lutheran for a long time, but gradually lost its original Lutheran confessional character.

Even today, the Friedrich-Alexander University has only a Protestant theological department and no Catholic theological department. However, it is still possible to study Catholic religious education for teaching at elementary, secondary, and vocational schools, as a subject in educational studies, and as an elective for business educators. For this purpose, there are four chairs at the Nuremberg campus, which now belong to the Faculty of Philosophy, to which the Department of Theology has been affiliated.

In 1818, the margrave's castle became the property of the university.

After a long period of modest development, Erlangen University, like other German universities, experienced an upswing in the early 1880s. In this context, it is also worth mentioning the founding of the long-overdue History Seminar on behalf of King Maximilian II of Bavaria by the historian Karl Hegel, who had been working here since 1856 and who established modern historical studies at the University of Erlangen. After Hegel had served as vice-rector of the university in 1870/71, the department was founded in 1872. Karl Hegel remained director of the Department of History until 1884.

Student numbers rose in the 1880s from 374 at the end of the winter semester of 1869/70 to 1,000 in 1890. While law students were in the majority in the early years, the Faculty of Theology was the most popular at the beginning of the Bavarian period. It was not until 1890 that it was overtaken by the Faculty of Medicine. The number of full professors rose from 20 in 1796 to 42 in 1900, almost half of whom were employed by the Faculty of Philosophy, which also included the natural sciences. It was not until 1928 that the latter formed a separate faculty.

Jakob Herz became the first Jewish professor at a university in Bavaria in 1863. After his death, a monument was unveiled in his honor on May 6, 1875. The larger-than-life bronze statue, erected on what is now Hugenottenplatz, was removed after the National Socialists came to power and was presumably melted down for war purposes in 1944.

20th century

Around 75% of the university's students volunteered or were conscripted during the First World War. 384 members of the university lost their lives in the war. In the post-war period, many of the students at Friedrich-Alexander University (around 350) took part in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic as members of the Freikorps Epp.

As a result of the Bavarian Concordat (1924) with the Catholic Church, several Catholic "concordat chairs" still exist at the university to this day. In 1927, the natural sciences were separated from the Faculty of Philosophy and transferred to a joint Faculty of Natural Sciences.

The National Socialist movement had already spread to the University of Erlangen in the early 1920s. An Erlangen Sturmabteilung (SA) division, consisting mainly of students, had been in existence since 1922. After Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a spontaneously formed radical nationalist list won twelve of 25 seats in the Erlangen AStA elections on 20 November 1923 and appointed Ludwig Franz Gengler as its first chairman. On 24 September 1924, 120 student members of the NSDAP founded the National Socialist Student Group Erlangen, which disbanded after Gengler moved to LMU Munich and was only re-established in 1928 as a university group of the National Socialist German Students' Union (NSDStB).

In the winter semester of 1928/29, the NSDStB won eight seats. In the subsequent university elections in 1929, the NSDStB finally won 14 seats, making the University of Erlangen the first German university to have a student parliament dominated by National Socialists. With around 200 members, the Erlangen university group had reached a considerable size by 1930 and was one of Baldur von Schirach's internal party opponents, led by the former Erlangen university group leader Reinhard Sunkel. After Sunkel and his supporters were expelled from the NSDStB, a splinter group of National Socialists called Revolutionary Students also ran in the university elections in Erlangen in November 1931 in competition with the Student Union and won a seat in the student parliament.

The University of Erlangen was less affected by the purge of German universities that began in 1933 than most other universities. Of the 121 members of the teaching staff in the winter semester of 1932/33, 9 people (7.4 percent) were expelled. However, 162 former students had their doctoral degrees revoked, mostly in 1939 (examples include the Jewish doctor Ernst Alfred Seckendorf and the lawyer and monarchist Catholic resistance fighter Adolf von Harnier). After the Second World War, the university denied this however, and it was not until the 1990s that this dark chapter of history was finally addressed.

Timeline

Below is a short timeline of FAU from its inception to its present form:

1700–1704: The Schloss of the Margraves at Erlangen is built.

1743: Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, issues an edict whereby the Academia Fridericiana, founded by him in 1742 in Bayreuth, is transferred to Erlangen and renamed as a university, Universität Erlangen. It has the four faculties of Protestant Theology, Jurisprudence, Medicine and Philosophy.

1769: The Universität Erlangen is given the new name of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in honour of Alexander, Margrave of Ansbach and Bayreuth.

1818: The library of the University of Altdorf, dissolved in 1809, is moved to Erlangen.

1824: The first hospital is built.

1825: The university moves into the Schloss.

1920: The WiSo Faculty (Business Administration, Economics & Social Sciences) is established.

1927: Science is taken out of the Faculty of Arts thus creating the new Faculty of Science.

1961: FAU acquires a further faculty through merger with the Nuremberg College of Economics and Social Sciences (founded in 1919). The university's name is now Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

1966: The Faculty of Engineering is established. (FAU is thus the first of the traditional universities of the old federal republic to incorporate engineering as an independent faculty.)

1972: The Teacher Training College in Nuremberg is incorporated into the Faculty of Education.

"Erlangen Schools" and "Erlangen Program"

Erlangen School is a term used to describe various academic schools at the University of Erlangen and beyond. In the 19th century, Erlangen theology was already a well-known movement of revivalist lay people and theologians, such as Christian Krafft and Karl Georg von Raumer.

In his inaugural lecture in 1872, mathematician Felix Klein, son-in-law of historian and founder of the Historical Department at the University of Erlangen Karl Hegel, developed a mathematical-geometric concept called the Erlangen Program, a method of characterizing geometries based on group theory and projective geometry that is still relevant today.

The 20th-century philosophical school around the constructivists Paul Lorenzen and Wilhelm Kamlah is called Erlangen constructivism or constructivism of the "Erlangen School".

The Erlangen School of Information Psychology (20th century) deals with work in the field of intelligence research.

Campuses

A major part of FAU's campuses is in the city of Erlangen, the minor part in the neighbouring city of Nuremberg. Several minor facilities are located in Hof, Fürth, Bamberg, Pleinfeld or Ingolstadt. In sum, there are several hundred FAU properties in the Nuremberg metropolitan area.

Erlangen

In Erlangen, the university has two main sites: one in the city centre (North site) and the other in city's south (South site). To the east of the city is the so-called "Röthelheim Campus" with minor engineering and medical facilities. In addition, FAU currently has a large number of larger and smaller properties spread over the entire Erlangen city area. Besides the Erlangen Schloss, the university's Schlossgarten in the city centre is a main sight in Erlangen and very popular among students especially during summer term.

The university's administration (in the Erlangen Schloss), the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Theology and the Department of Law (as part of the Faculty of Law and Economics) are located at the North Site (both at Bismarckstraße/Schillerstraße) as well as the Faculty of Medicine and the University Hospital. Also in the city centre is the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg. The Erlangen University Hospital is one of the biggest university hospitals in Germany.

The Faculty of Science (Erwin-Rommel-Straße/Staudtstraße) and the Faculty of Engineering form FAU's South site.

The University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg is the library system of the Friedrich-Alexander University and is a regional library for the region of Middle Franconia. As an academic universal library, it offers its users a wide range of specialist literature from all faculties and a variety of services. With approximately 5.4 million volumes, it is Bavaria's largest library outside the state capital Munich. Large parts of the media stock are also accessible in interregional lending. The University Library is a member of the Bavarian Library Network (Bibliotheksverbund Bayern).

The Erlangen-Nuremberg library system is structured as a two-tier system, comprising four central libraries and 15 branch libraries. These libraries collectively manage a vast collection of resources distributed across approximately 200 locations. Among these central libraries, the Main Library and the Technical and Natural Sciences Branch Library (TNZB) are situated in Erlangen, while the Economic and Social Sciences Library (WSZB) and the Educational Science Branch Library (EZB) are based in Nuremberg.

Within this collaborative library system, most branch libraries take on the responsibility of acquiring and maintaining their own collections. However, all these resources are consolidated and accessible through the University Library's online catalogue, known as OPACplus.

Nuremberg

The Department of Economics (as part of the Faculty of Law and Economics) and the Department of Education (as part of the Faculty of Humanities) are in Nuremberg.

The Department of Economics is located northeast of the historic Old Town (Lange Gasse/Maxtormauer). The School of Business, Economics and Society in Lange Gasse, Nuremberg, celebrated 100 years in 2019. The Department of Education ("Campus Regensburger Straße") is in the southeast of the city near the Dutzendteich and the former Nazi party rally grounds of Nuremberg.

Faculties

In February 2007, the senate of the university decided upon a restructuring into five faculties. Since October 2007, FAU consists of:

Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology

Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Sciences

Faculty of Engineering

The following faculties were part of the university (sorted in the order in which they were founded):

Theological faculty

Law faculty

Medical faculty

Philosophical faculty I (philosophy, history, and social sciences)

Philosophical faculty II (languages and literature)

Science faculty I (mathematics and physics)

Science faculty II (biology, chemistry, and pharmaceutics)

Science faculty III (geography, geology/mineralogy/paleontology)

Business- and social sciences faculty (1961) in Nuremberg

Technical Faculty (1966)

Pedagogical faculty (1972) in Nuremberg

Faculty of Engineering

In 1962, after lengthy debate, the Bavarian parliament decided to establish a Faculty of Engineering in Erlangen. The Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen thus won against the city of Nuremberg, which, for decades, had been demanding the establishment of a college of engineering in Nuremberg. Since the expansive areas of building land required for this project were not available in the center of Erlangen, the foundations for a new university campus were laid in the south east of the town in 1964. The formal establishment of the Faculty of Engineering, then the seventh faculty at the university, took place in 1966. What was unique at the time was that the various engineering departments were subsumed, as a faculty, into the main university rather than constituting an independent university.

The Faculty of Engineering at FAU is a young educational and research institution. Since its foundation in 1966, the faculty has five departments and are as follows:

Electrical, Electronic and Communication Engineering

Chemical and Biological Engineering

Materials Science and Engineering, which is according to the Quantitative Ranking of Engineering Disciplines, the 10th best worldwide.

Mechanical Engineering

Computer Science

The faculty has close connections both with other natural sciences and with traditional subjects at the university. The Faculty of Engineering currently concentrates on the following research fields:

New Materials and Processes

Life Science Engineering and Medicine Technology

Energy Technology and Mobility

Modeling and Simulation

Facilities

Other university facilities:

Bavarian Center for Political Theory (BAYPOL)

Bavarian University Center for Latin America at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (BAYLAT)

Campus media funklust

Center for Continuing Education in Higher Education (FBZHL)

Center for Teacher Training

Central Institute for the Anthropology of Religion(s)

Collegium Alexandrinum

Erlangen Regional Computing Center

FAU Alumni Network

FAU Graduate School

Language Center

Studentenwerk (Student Services)

University Hospital

University Library

University Orchestra

Research

Major research areas

FAU claims leadership in a number of research topics. The current eight such major research areas are:

Exploring the principles of nature

Targeting environmental and economic challenges

Understanding norms, cultural practices and social formations

Developing future technologies

Engineering transformative healthcare

Excellence Initiative

The Excellence Initiative is sponsored by the German federal and state governments to promote science and research at German universities. It aims to promote cutting-edge research and to strengthen higher education and research in Germany to improve its international competitiveness as well as making top performers in academia and science visible.

As part of this initiative, FAU has been awarded with funding for several Excellence clusters. The former Excellence Cluster Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT) received approximately 1.85 million euros of annual funding from 2006 to 2019. SAOT now acts as an interdisciplinary hub for research on photonics and optical technologies in Erlangen by providing an Education Program of Excellence for national and international doctoral candidates.

The former Cluster of Excellence 'Engineering of Advanced Materials and Processes' (EAM) was also established at FAU as part of the initiative and received a total of 70 million euros in funding from 2007 to 2019.

The contracts contributet significantly to the research funding of the university, including five new research buildings, permanent new technical facilities and research and teaching staff.

The current federal excellence strategy aims to support 70 clusters of excellence at 43 German universities with a total budget of 687 millionen euros for the next seven years, a mid-seven-figure sum of which will go to the new Cluster of Excellence "Transforming Human Rights" at FAU. The funding provides institutional support for the Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nuremberg.

The Cluster of Excellence "Transforming Human Rights" aims to address the potential and the limits of human rights against the backdrop of the fundamental changes that are shaping our times.

The focus is on five megatrends:

Autocratization

The fragmentation of economic globalization

National High Performance Computing Center

In 2020 FAU joined the National High-Performance Computing (NHR) alliance in Germany. This program is designed to provide researchers with access to state-of-the-art computing resources exceeding the limits of local HPC resources, including supercomputers. By joining the NHR program, FAU has expanded its computing infrastructure, enabling its researchers to conduct more advanced simulations and analyses in various fields of study.

Partnerships

FAU has contacts with approximately 500 universities all over the world, including many of the world's top universities like the University of Cambridge, Duke University, UCL, Imperial College London and many more.

Youth development

FAU is, together with HU Berlin, the university with the most graduate colleges funded by the German Research Foundation. Furthermore, FAU is a member of a large number of international, interregional and regional networks for promoting young researchers, such as the European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance (EELISA), the German University Association for the Qualification of Early-Career Researchers in Germany (UniWinD) and the Committee for the Promotion of Young Talent at Bavarian Universities (BayAK).

FAU has received several awards for its work with young researchers, including the Henriette Herz Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for its FAUattract recruitment program. The FAUnext career program supports young researchers on their career path to becoming professors. In the Emerging Talents Initiative (FAUeti), young researchers can apply for internal university funding to further develop their research for the application process with external funding bodies such as the German Research Foundation. Furthermore, FAU supports its young scientists through various programs, including the ARIADNE program for the promotion of young female scientists, and a large number of collaborations with non-university institutions.

As a result, young scientists at the university have repeatedly been awarded prizes specifically tailored to young researchers, such as the Körber European Science Prize, the Alfried Krupp Prize, and the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize.

EELISA

Since 15.07.2021 FAU has been part of the European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance (EELISA). EELISA is a consortium of ten higher education institutions from France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey with the common ambition of defining and implementing a common model of European engineer rooted in society, and of bridging engineering, sciences and humanities for inclusive, sustainable and digital societies.

EELISA lists gender equity and diversity in engineering and science among its stated goals.

It's funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ program to transform European engineering education and co-funded by the European Union program Horizon2020 Funding for Research & Innovation and by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology. EELISA has been selected under the 2023 Erasmus+ European Universities Call with funding of €14,400,000 and a total budget of over €21,000,000 .

ELLISA members:

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

École nationale des ponts et chaussées

Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg

Istanbul Technical University

Scuola Normale Superiore

Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Politehnica University of Bucharest

Paris Sciences et Lettres University

Zurich University of Applied Sciences/ZHAW

Academic ranking

According to the QS World University Rankings of 2026, the university is ranked 232th in the world and 14th nationally.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2026 places the university at the 201–250th position globally, and 19–23rd at national level. As per the ARWU 2026 edition, the FAU is ranked 226th worldwide and 15th at the national level.

FAU ranks first in the “Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure” sustainability goal of the Times Higher Education Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026. In the “Responsible Consumption and Production” sustainability goal, FAU ranks 29th globally and first in Germany. FAU is also among the top-ranked German universities in the sustainability goals “Good Health and Well-being,” “Quality Education,” “Affordable and Clean Energy,” “Sustainable Cities and Communities,” and “Climate Action.”

The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranks the FAU 84th worldwide in Per Capita Performance.

Measured by the number of top managers in the German economy, FAU ranked 25th in 2019.

In 2017, ARWU ranked FAU 4th in Germany in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences, 6th in Germany in Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy and 7th in Germany in Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

QS World University Rankings 2018 ranked FAU as the academic institution that has produced the most widely cited publications in Germany (global 21st). 2017, Reuters ranked FAU as the 50th most innovative university globally (2nd Germany, 6th in Europe). In the Reuters ranking report published in 2019, FAU has been rated as the most innovative university in Germany and as the 2nd in Europe.

In Academic Ranking of World Universities for year 2014, FAU ranked second among German universities in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences group for all four ranking parameters TOP, FUN, HiCi and PUB.

Awards

Alexander von Humboldt Professorships

In 2010, the newly announced professor of physics and co-director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Prof. Vahid Sandoghdar was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, Germany's highest-endowed international research award, endowed with €3.5 million.

In the year 2011, the second in a row, FAU communications engineer and researcher Prof. Dr.-Ing Robert Schober (born 1971) was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, entailed with €3.5 million, for an algorithm developed by him which is found in many modern phones today.

In 2013, Prof. Oskar Painter received an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship as well. Prof. Painter is another new co-director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light.

In 2019, Prof. Enrique Zuazua received an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship where he directs the chair for dynamics, control, machine learning, and numerics.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has honored each professor nominated by FAU with the prestigious award since 2018. Linguist Ewa Dąbrowska received the award in 2018. She conducts research in cognitive linguistics and is currently setting up a Linguistics Lab at FAU. In 2019, mathematician Enrique Zuazua, who conducts research in partial differential equations and control theory at the Department of Data Science, followed suit. Kristian Franze, who studies the mechanics of the nervous system, was awarded the Humboldt Professorship in 2020. He is also a member and team leader of the Max Planck Center for Physics and Medicine, which was founded by FAU together with Erlangen University Hospital and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. The following year mathematician and sinologist Andrea Bréard received the Humboldt Professorship. Vincent C. Müller, who researches the ethics and philosophy of artificial intelligence, followed suit in 2022. In 2023, physicist Benoit Ladoux was honoured with the award. He is researching how cells and tissues generate mechanical forces, how they react to these forces, and how these stresses in turn influence the changes of shapes, migration, and differentiation of cells during their development. The 2024 recipient was Michaela Mahlberg, who uses computer-assisted quantitative linguistic methods to examine language and its social function in huge text corpora. Also nominated in 2024 was Eva Pils, who got the award in 2025 for her research on human rights protection in China.

Comprehensive Cancer Center

As part of their funding program for the initiation and further development of centers of excellence in cancer care, the university hospitals of Würzburg, Erlangen, Regensburg, and Augsburg (CCC WERA) and the university hospitals of Leipzig and Jena (CCCG) have joined forces to form so-called Comprehensive Cancer Centers (CCC). CCC WERA and CCCG will receive a total of €11 million in funding from German Cancer Aid for four years starting in 2022.

CONKO-007 study on pancreatic cancer

In a clinical study led by the Radiation Oncology Department at Erlangen University Hospital, researchers were able to show how long-term survival can be improved for certain pancreatic cancer patients. The study showed that the additional therapy had a positive impact on long-term survival. The five-year survival rate for all patients included in the study was significantly higher after radiochemotherapy (10 percent) than after chemotherapy alone (3.8 percent). The study was funded by the German Cancer Aid Foundation with 1.9 million euros. The foundation has also set up a funding program to establish a research alliance to combat pancreatic cancer. The aim is to improve treatment options for those affected. The German Cancer Aid Foundation has allocated €40 million Euro for this program for a funding period of five years. The funded projects are expected to be announced at the German Cancer Congress in February 2026.

Events

Schlossgartenfest

Since 1951, the university has held the so-called Schlossgartenfest (Castle Garden Festival) every year in June/July. The festival is considered a social highlight in Bavaria's academic calendar. With around 6,000 participants, it is one of the largest garden parties in Europe. As part of the preparations, the castle gardens in the center of Erlangen are transformed into a large open-air ballroom, boasting several dance floors, fairy lights, sound systems, seating, and catering for the guests. The atmosphere is enhanced by annually changing light objects and the colorful illumination of the surrounding buildings. These are created each year by design students from Coburg University. The festivities used to include fireworks. In 2022, a laser show took place for the first time instead of fireworks. Since 1974, a so-called Bürgerfrühschoppen (citizens' morning pint) has taken place on the following Sunday. During the event, students and professors from the university meet with Bavaria's economic and political dignitaries.

In 1969, the Schlossgartenfest had to be cancelled due to student unrest, in 1966, 1980 and 2000 due to persistent bad weather, and in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dies academicus

Every year on November 4, the university celebrates its academic birthday, the dies academicus (lat.: academic day).

Traditionally the university president starts the event by giving family members, friends, and supporters of FAU a review of the most important events and developments of the past year and an outlook on the university's plans and projects for the coming year. Attended by important figures from public life, this day also sees the presentation of honors and awards of outstanding importance to the university – at FAU, for example, the title of honorary senator, the title of FAU ambassador, or the equality award.

In addition to the official ceremony, the Dies academicus at FAU is an opportunity for members, friends, and supporters of the university to engage in conversation with one another.

Points of interest

Botanischer Garten Erlangen, the university's botanical garden

Notable alumni and professors

Louis Agassiz, biologist and geologist

Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739–1810), naturalist, studied mammals.

Robley Dunglison (1798–1869), personal physician to Thomas Jefferson, considered the "Father of American Physiology"

Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), founder of homeopathy

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), Geographer and Explorer, attended lectures in Chemistry and Physics.

Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), orientalist and poet.

Georg Simon Ohm (1789–1854), physicist, Ohm's law, named after him.

Justus von Liebig (1803–1873), chemist, "father of the fertilizer industry".

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872), philosopher, associated with the Young Hegelians, an atheist.

Karl von Hegel (1813–1901), historian, father-in-law to Felix Klein and son of the philosopher Hegel

Felix Klein (1849–1925), Mathematician

Hermann Emil Fischer (1852–1919), chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1902

Eduard Buchner (1860–1917), chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1907

Emanuel Lasker (1868–1941), world chess champion, mathematician, philosopher.