Rolf Herman Nevanlinna (né Neovius; 22 October 1895 – 28 May 1980) was a Finnish mathematician who made significant contributions to complex analysis. Background Nevanlinna was born Rolf Herman Neovius, becoming Nevanlinna in 1906 when his father changed the family name. The Neovius-Nevanlinna family contained many mathematicians: Edvard Engelbert Neovius (Rolf's grandfather) taught mathematics and topography at a military academy; Edvard Rudolf Neovius (Rolf's uncle) was a professor of mathematics at the University of Helsinki from 1883 to 1900; Lars Theodor Neovius-Nevanlinna (Rolf's uncle) was an author of mathematical textbooks; and Otto Wilhelm Neovius-Nevanlinna (Rolf's father) was a physicist, astronomer and mathematician. After Otto obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Helsinki, he studied at the Pulkovo Observatory with the German astronomer Herman Romberg, whose daughter, Margarete Henriette Louise Romberg, he married in 1892. Otto and Margarete then settled in Joensuu, where Otto taught physics, and there their four children were born: Frithiof (born 1894; also a mathematician), Rolf (born 1895), Anna (born 1896) and Erik (born 1901). Education Nevanlinna began his formal education at the age of 7. Having already been taught to read and write by his parents, he went straight into the second grade but still found the work boring and soon refused to attend the school. He was then homeschooled before being sent to a grammar school in 1903 when the family moved to Helsinki, where his father took up a new post as a teacher at Helsinki High School. At the new school, Nevanlinna studied French and German in addition to the languages he already spoke: Finnish and Swedish. He also attended an orchestra school and had a love of music, which was encouraged by his mother: Nevanlinna then progressed onto the Helsinki High School, where his main interests were classics and mathematics. He was taught by a number of teachers during this time but the best of them all was his own father, who taught him physics and mathematics. He graduated in 1913 having performed very well, although he was not the top student of his year. He then went beyond the school syllabus in the summer of 1913 when he read Ernst Leonard Lindelöf's Introduction to Higher Analysis; from that time on, Nevanlinna had an enthusiastic interest in mathematical analysis. (Lindelöf was also a cousin of Nevanlinna's father, and so a part of the Neovius-Nevanlinna mathematical family.) Nevanlinna began his studies