Arnold Vladimir Igorevich: biography, family and achievements of the famous mathematician

Arnold Vladimir Igorevich is a Soviet and Russian mathematician who developed theories concerning differential equations, singularities of smooth mappings, and also wrote a lot of works on theoretical mechanics and topology.

Biography

Arnold Vladimir Igorevich (photo posted in the article) was born on June 12, 1937 in Ukraine, in the city of Odessa.

However, soon his family moved to Moscow, where the future mathematician spent his childhood. After the graduation from the capital's school № 59 Vladimir Arnold became a student of the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow State University, which he successfully graduated in 1959.

The future scientist was lucky. His teacher was a well-known mathematician Andrei Nikolayevich Kolgomorov. Already in his 20 years, Vladimir Arnold expressed the opinion that any continuous function consisting of several variables can be represented as a combination of a certain number of functions. This allowed to solve the 13th problem of Hilbert.

After receiving a diploma from Moscow State University, Arnold Vladimir Igorevich remained at his home university. In the period from 1965 to 1986, he held the position of professor. Being a remarkable teacher, Vladimir Igorevich conducted his studies, emphasizing the comprehensibility of presentation and visualization. At the same time he considered extremely ineffective formal style, providing for an accurate exposition of axioms. This approach to learning mathematician even considered harmful. And he explained how to explain exact science by his methods to both students and schoolchildren.

The next place of his work was the Steklov Mathematical Institute. Here Arnold Vladimir Igorevich worked from 1986 until the last days of his life. In the same years he was an employee of the University of Paris-Dauphine.

The mathematician Arnold Vladimir Igorevich died 03.06.2010 in the capital of France. In Paris, a 72-year-old scientist underwent a course of treatment. Vladimir I. entered the St. Antoine Hospital on the eve of his death. Here he was given an operation that he could not bear.

The mathematician Arnold Vladimir Igorevich was buried on June 15, 2010 at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Next to it rests Academician Vitaly Ginzburg.

A family

Thanks to what so interesting was the biography of a well-known Russian scientist who was Vladimir Igorevich Arnold? Family mathematics played in his life is not the last role.

The father of the scientist - Igor Vladimirovich Arnold - was a doctor of pedagogical sciences. He was also a corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR, a professor, a mathematician and a methodologist. Grandfather Vladimir Igorevich - Arnold Vladimir Fedorovich - was an extrasist and an economist. His pen belongs to several works that study the costs of peasant farms and agronomical techniques. Brother of my grandmother Vladimir Igorevich on his father's side - writer BS Zhitkov.

The mother of the famous Russian mathematician, Arnold Nina Alexandrovna, was an art critic. Her workplace was the Pushkin Museum. Grandfather of Vladimir Igorevich on the maternal line - Isakovich Alexander Solomonovich. He was a lawyer, as well as a research fellow and head of the training unit at the Odessa Research Institute of the Refrigeration Industry.

Vladimir Igorevich was the nephew of physicists: Isakovich Mikhail Aleksandrovich (head of the theoretical department at the Acoustical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) and Natalia's Paradise Natalia, who worked as editor of the physics department in the All-Union State Library of Scientific Literature.

The brother of Grandmother Arnold V.I. on the maternal line is a well-known physicist LI Mandelstam. The same science devoted his life and brother of a mathematician - Arnold Dmitry Igorevich.

Academic career at home

How successful was the activity carried out by Vladimir Igorevich Arnold? His biography as a mathematician was the most brilliant at first in the USSR, and after - in Russia. His achievements in this field have received wide recognition in the circles of domestic and foreign scientists.

Already in 1965, he could become a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, but the results of the vote revealed a shortage of just one vote. His election was only 25 years later. The main reason for such a long break lies, most likely, in the independent views of the scientist. Vladimir Igorevich expressed his views on the content of mathematical work, regardless of the author's personality. Sometimes even academics fell under the fire of his criticism.

A serious barrier in his career was the signing in 1968 of "Letters of Ninety-nine". This was a message written in defense of the Soviet logic of Esenin-Volpin, who was subjected to compulsory psychiatric treatment. For this dissident act Arnold was forbidden to travel abroad. And until the late 1980s, the scientist was limited in his communication with foreign mathematicians. This fact, as Vladimir Igorevich himself believed, adversely affected his scientific achievements.

Academic career abroad

The jump in prices caused by the change in the state structure forced Vladimir Igorevich to look for other sources of income. And, recalling his trip to France, held in 1964-1965, he accepted a proposal for cooperation with the University of Paris Dauphin.

Since 1976, the scientist was elected Honorary Member of the Mathematical Society in London, which was very flattering. According to Arnold himself, participation in this club was much more prestigious than getting a Fields medal. A well-known mathematician was also offered membership in the Pontifical Academy. But he refused it, explaining it by disagreement with the verdict that was still not repealed, which in 1600 the Inquisition was handed down by Giordano Bruno.

In 1987, VI Arnold was chosen as an Honorary Foreign Member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of America. And a year later he was admitted to the Royal Society of London.

In 1990, Vladimir Igorevich was elected Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and from 1996 to 2010 he was President of the Moscow Mathematical Society. Similar activities were carried out by Arnold and abroad. So, from 1996 to 2002, the scientist was vice-president and member of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union.

Main Achievements

Throughout his scientific career, the mathematician Arnold Vladimir Igorevich exerted a considerable influence on various theories. At the same time, he made the main contribution:

1. In the solution of one of the possible interpretations of Hilbert's thirteenth problem.
2. In a theory that considers perturbations of Hamiltonian systems. The totality of the methods, results and ideas obtained was given its own name. Today this is the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theorem (KAM-theory).
3. In the application of topological methods for hydrodynamics.
4. In the theory of singularities. This development has allowed to revolutionize the methodology of classification of features. The theory has become much richer and overgrown with numerous applications.
5. To the topology of algebraic real varieties. Arnold was one of the first to apply a complex technique in the study of this topology.
6. In a critical rethinking of the basic concept concerning the integrability of such common dynamic systems. Now this concept has a different name. Today, this is Arnold-Liouville integrability.
7. In the construction of the form of families of matrices. This work resulted in a generalization of the understanding of the Jordan matrix form.
8. In the idea of constructing the so-called symplectic topology as one of the sources of quantum cohomology.

It is impossible not to mention the unusual record that Arnold Vladimir Igorevich beat. The quotes of this scientist were voiced by mathematicians more than 22,000 times.

Activities

Already from the beginning of the 1960s Vladimir Igorevich Arnold directed all his potential for understanding the structure of the world, resorting to mathematical methods. At the same time, the scientist researched those objects that very few people paid attention to using their encyclopaedic knowledge.

Vladimir Igorevich Arnold, whose achievements in the field of mathematics are difficult to overestimate, laid the foundations of many theories. However, when his ideas took a clear outline, and their main direction of development was revealed, the scientist stepped aside. Having formulated the main task, Vladimir Igorevich left the elaboration of details for his numerous students who loved the mentor and believed in him.

Theory of singularities

There is only one area in which Vladimir Igorevich Arnold (his biography is inextricably linked with mathematics) has worked all the questions from beginning to the end. This is a theory of singularities. Its foundations and developments came about thanks to Arnold, his school and the participation of researchers from the Soviet Union and their foreign colleagues.

In some Western publications, these works are called "catastrophe theory." This is a section of mathematics describing any sudden change that occurs in an arbitrary system with small deviations from the original states.

Take, for example, Ziman's car. This device is easily assembled at home from fairly simple parts - a piece of paper, cardboard, pencil and two rubber bands.

The Ziman machine is an example of a system in which catastrophes are possible. In this device, the pencil is connected with rubber bands with a rotating disc of cardboard. Sometimes its movement occurs smoothly, and sometimes, in response to a small change, jerks. Such instability can be observed in many systems.

This area of knowledge occupies the minds of many researchers. Stability and instability of the system can be applied to equations describing the evolution of the market and heat transfer processes. The solution of such problems will allow predicting any direction in the behavior of nuclear reactors, not only in a stable but also in a catastrophic mode.

Arnold Vladimir Igorevich is not the ancestor of this section of mathematical science. The father of the "catastrophe theory" is R. Tom. However, it was the Russian scientists who wrote the classic book dedicated to this field. Its name is Theory of Catastrophes.

Ranks and awards

The bright rise of the young mathematician was appreciated by the state. In 1960 he was awarded the prize of the Moscow Mathematical Society. And five years later, VI Arnol'd and AM Kolmogorov were noted for their work on the KAM theory. The scientists were awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize. It was simply impossible to receive a higher award in the USSR.

Recognition of their merits the scientist has received and from the world mathematical community. In 1974, in Vancouver, and also in 1983 in Warsaw, he read lectures at the International Mathematical Congresses. A special half-hour speech by VI Arnold was held in 1966 in Moscow.

In 1982, Arnold shared with L. Nirenberg (USA) newly established by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, but immediately became a prestigious Krafford Prize. However, the party leadership of the USSR did not release him to Stockholm for its receipt.

In 2001, Vladimir Igorevich was awarded the Wolff Prize. Her scientist was awarded for active and fruitful work in various areas of mathematics.

In 2007, Arnold was among the first laureates of the state award of Russia. And a year later he was awarded the "Asian Nobel". It was the Shaw Prize, which the scientist shared with LD Faddeev, which was another worldwide recognition of Arnold's achievements.

Publications

Along with scientific works, Arnold Vladimir Igorevich wrote articles. They were published in newspapers, as well as magazines and interviews with a famous mathematician.

Many articles by Arnold touched on the topic of school education. The scientist criticized the training system in foreign countries. At the same time, problems of mathematical education in Russian schools were touched upon. The scientist expressed his negative opinion about the "training" of children for certain tasks.

Arnold Vladimir Igorevich also wrote books. These works, as a rule, concerned his scientific activity. However, here he did not forget about the younger generation. So, one of the books written by Arnold Vladimir Igorevich is "Tasks for children from 5 to 15 years old". Let's consider it in more detail.

A fascinating journey into exact science

Surprising in its content is the book, written by Arnold Vladimir Igorevich, - "Problems for children from 5 to 15 years." The answers to many of the questions contained in it are easiest to find five-year-olds than "trained" students or students. With difficulty, such problems are solved by professors, as well as Fields and Nobel laureates.

The idea of writing this book originated in the spring of 2004 in Paris. It was then that representatives of the Russian intelligentsia living in France asked Arnold to help their children acquire a culture of thought so traditional for Rus. According to the scientist's conviction, this is precisely what should bring up early independent thoughts in the person about simple but at the same time difficult questions.

The brochure includes 77 tasks, compiled or selected by the author. The decision of most of them does not need special knowledge that would go beyond school education. His book Vladimir Igorevich addressed preschoolers and schoolchildren, students and teachers. It should also be used by parents who consider the education of their child's thinking culture an indispensable part of personal development.

Here is one example of tasks that require a small discovery. On the shelf with books are two volumes of Pushkin's works. The thickness of the pages of each of them is 2 cm. In addition, the covers of these books are 2 mm each. On the first page of Volume 1 there was a bookworm. Then he gnawed through the shortest distance and found himself on the last page of Volume 2. What is the distance he has made?

This is a remarkable topological (geometric) problem, the answer of which is quite unexpected for many - 4 mm. He is capable of stalling many Nobel laureates, but preschoolers who are still able to make discoveries, usually cope with it perfectly.