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Biography

Jacobi was born of Ashkenazi Jewish parentage in Potsdam on 10 December 1804. He was the second of four children of a banker, Simon Jacobi. His elder brother, Moritz, would also become known later as an engineer and physicist. He was initially home schooled by his uncle Lehman, who instructed him in the classical languages and elements of mathematics. In 1816, the twelve-year-old Jacobi went to the Potsdam Gymnasium, where students were taught all the standard subjects: classical languages, history, philology, mathematics, sciences, etc. As a result of the good education he had received from his uncle, as well as his own remarkable abilities, after less than half a year Jacobi was moved to the senior year despite his young age. However, as the University would not accept students younger than 16 years old, he had to remain in the senior class until 1821. He used this time to advance his knowledge, showing interest in all subjects, including Latin, Greek, philology, history and mathematics. During this period he also made his first attempts at research, trying to solve the quintic equation by radicals.

In 1821 Jacobi went to study at Berlin University, where he initially divided his attention between his passions for philology and mathematics. In philology, he participated in the seminars of Böckh, drawing the professor's attention with his talent. Jacobi did not follow a lot of mathematics classes at the time, finding the level of mathematics taught at Berlin University too elementary. He continued, instead, with his private study of the more advanced works of Euler, Lagrange and Laplace. By 1823 he understood that he needed to make a decision between his competing interests and chose to devote all his attention to mathematics. In the same year he became qualified to teach secondary school and was offered a position at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin. Jacobi decided instead to continue to work towards a university position. In 1825, he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a dissertation on the partial fraction decomposition of rational fractions defended before a commission led by Enno Dirksen. He followed immediately with his Habilitation and at the same time converted to Christianity. Now qualifying for teaching university classes, the 21-year-old Jacobi lectured in 1825/26 on the theory of curves and surfaces at the University of Berlin.

In 1826, Jacobi became a private lecturer, in the next year an extraodinary professor, and in finally 1829, a tenured professor of mathematics at Königsberg University, and held the chair until 1842.He suffered a breakdown from overwork in 1843. He then visited Italy for a few months to regain his health. On his return he moved to Berlin, where he lived as a royal pensioner, apart from a very brief interim, until his death. During the Revolution of 1848 Jacobi was politically involved and unsuccessfully presented his parliamentary candidature on behalf of a Liberal club. This led, after the suppression of the revolution, to his royal grant being cut off – but his fame and reputation were such that it was soon resumed, thanks to the personal intervention of Alexander von Humboldt.

Jacobi died in 1851 from a smallpox infection. His grave is preserved at a cemetery in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, the Friedhof I der Dreifaltigkeits-Kirchengemeinde (61 Baruther Street). His grave is close to that of Johann Encke, the astronomer. The crater Jacobi on the Moon is named after him.