Celebrating Niels Henrik Abel

The year 1902 was to be marked by several anniversaries and congresses. At the conference of Scandinavian natural scientists held in Kristiania in 1886, a campaign was started to collect money to commission a statue of Abel. Ever since then there had been much discussion about the big celebration in his name. Mittag-Leffler had begun taking an interest in honoring Abel much earlier. Back in 1875 – after meeting Hermite and Weierstrass and seeing their admiration for Abel – he had mentioned his first plans to write a biography of Abel. When the first volume of Acta Mathematica was published in 1882, it was Abel’s portrait that appeared in front of Poincaré’s groundbreaking treatises. And twenty years later Mittag-Leffler dedicated an entire volume of Acta to Abel’s memory. This “anniversary volume” would also be Acta’s volume number 26 and thus usher in the second quarter of its first century in print. This was a point that Mittag-Leffler emphasized to the rest of the editorial board and in the numerous letters that he sent out inviting submissions. It soon became apparent that all the articles coming in would not fit into one volume. A total of three volumes – Acta volume 26, 27, and 28 – are titled “Niels Henrik Abel, in memoriam.” Together they contain almost 1,200 pages and close to 60 articles. Only the first volume would be finished in time for the actual celebration in the Norwegian capital in September 1902.