Magnus Gustaf Mittag-Leffler

Magnus Gustaf "Gösta" Mittag-Leffler (16 March 1846 – 7 July 1927) was a Swedish mathematician. His mathematical contributions are connected chiefly with the theory of functions that today is called complex analysis. He founded the prestigious mathematical periodical Acta Mathematica and was its editor for 40 years. Mittag-Leffler was known as an advocate for female intellectual workers in an era when contributions by women were often overlooked or miscredited to men. He took great trouble in procuring Sofia Kovalevskaya a position of full professor of mathematics in Stockholm University. Mittag-Leffler was responsible for inducing the Nobel committee to recognize Marie Curie as an equal contributor to the discoveries "on the radiation phenomena" along with her husband Pierre Curie. Mittag-Leffler also began the process of nominating Henrietta Swan Leavett for the Nobel Prize in Physics for her identification of Cepheid variable stars, crucial to Edwin Hubble's work on the true size of the universe, however this had to be abandoned due to the astronomer's untimely death from stomach cancer in 1921.:118 After World War I, Mittag-Leffler gave his estate in Djursholm and its remarkable library of books on mathematics to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; it became the foundation of the modern Mittag-Leffler Institute.