Germund Dahlquist

Who was Germund Dahlquist?

Germund Dahlquist was a Swedish mathematician known primarily for his early contributions to the theory of numerical analysis as applied to differential equations.

Dahlquist began to study mathematics at Stockholm University in 1942 at the age of 17, where he cites the Danish mathematician Harald Bohr as a profound influence.

He received the degree of licentiat from Stockholm University in 1949, before taking a break from his studies to work at the Swedish Board of Computer Machinery, working on the early computer BESK, Sweden's first. During this time, he also worked with Carl-Gustaf Rossby on early numerical weather forecasts.

Dahlquist returned to Stockholm University to complete his Ph.D., “Stability and Error Bounds in the Numerical Solution of Ordinary Differential Equations", which he defended in 1958, with Fritz Carlson and Lars Hörmander as his advisors. As part of this work he introduced the logarithmic norm.

In 1959 he moved to the Royal Institute of Technology, where he would later establish what is now the Department of Numerical Analysis and Computer Science in 1962, and become Sweden's first Professor of Numerical Analysis in 1963.