Heine, Heinrich Eduard (1812-1881)

German mathematician who completed the formulation of the notion of uniform continuity. He subsequently provided a proof of the classic theorem on uniform continuity of continuous functions, which has since become known as Heine's theorem.

Heine was born in Berlin and studied there and at Göttingen. In 1848, he was appointed professor at Halle University and remained there for the rest of his life.

Heine's theorem is sometimes known as the Heine-Borel theorem, because French mathematician Emile Borel formulated the covering property of uniform conformity, and proved it. Heine formulated the notion of uniform continuity and went on to prove the classic theorem of uniform continuity of continuous functions.

In all, Heine published more than 50 papers on mathematics. His speciality was spherical functions, Lamé functions, and Bessel functions. His Handbuch der Kugelfunctionen (1861) became the standard work on spherical functions for the next 50 years.