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Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl (November 9, 1885 - December 8, 1955) was a German mathematician. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is closely identified with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as pure disciplines including number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and a key member of the Institute for Advanced Study in its early years, in terms of creating an integrated and international view. Weyl published technical and some general works on space, time, matter, philosophy, logic, symmetry and the history of mathematics. He was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism. While no mathematician of his generation aspired to the 'universalism' of Henri Poincaré or Hilbert, Weyl came as close as anyone. Michael Atiyah, in particular, has commented that whenever he looked into an area, he found that Weyl had preceded him (The Mathematical Intelligencer (1984), vol.6 no.1). The similarity of the names sometimes led to his being confused with André Weil. A communal joke for mathematicians was that, each being of great stature, this was a rare example where such mistakes would not cause offence on either side.
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