Page "Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet" Paragraph 5

As General Foy died in November 1825 and he could not find any paying position in France, Dirichlet had to return to Prussia.

Fourier and Poisson introduced him to Alexander von Humboldt, who had been called to join the court of King Friedrich Wilhelm III.

Humboldt, planning to make Berlin a center of science and research, immediately offered his help to Dirichlet, sending letters in his favour to the Prussian government and to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

Humboldt also secured a recommendation letter from Gauss, who upon reading his memoir on Fermat's theorem wrote with an unusual amount of praise that " Dirichlet showed excellent talent ".

With the support of Humboldt and Gauss, Dirichlet was offered a teaching position at the University of Breslau ( now the University of Wrocław in Poland ).

However, as he had not passed a doctoral dissertation, he submitted his memoir on the Fermat theorem as a thesis to the University of Bonn.

Again his lack of fluency in Latin rendered him unable to hold the required public disputation of his thesis ; after much discussion, the University decided to bypass the problem by awarding him a honorary doctorate in February 1827.

Also, the Minister of education granted him a dispensation for the Latin disputation required for the Habilitation.

Dirichlet earned the Habilitation and lectured in the 1827 / 28 year as a Privatdozent at Breslau.