Aleksandr Aleksandrov | |
|---|---|
| Александр Александров | |
 Aleksandrov in 1954 | |
| Born | (1912-08-04)4 August 1912 Volyn,Ryazan Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 27 July 1999(1999-07-27) (aged 86) Saint Petersburg, Russia |
| Alma mater | Leningrad State University |
| Known for | Geometry and Physics |
| Children | 2 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics,physics |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral advisors | |
| Doctoral students | |
Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov[a] (Russian:Алекса́ндр Дани́лович Алекса́ндров; 4 August 1912 – 27 July 1999) was a Soviet and Russianmathematician,physicist,philosopher andmountaineer.
Aleksandr Aleksandrov was born in 1912 in Volyn,Ryazan Oblast.[1] His father was a headmaster of a secondary school inSt Petersburg and his mother a teacher at said school, thus the young Alekandrov spent a majority of his childhood in the city.[2] His family was old Russian nobility—students noted ancestral portraits which hung in his office.[3] His sisters were Soviet botanistVera Danilovna Aleksandrov (RU) and Maria Danilovna Aleksandrova, author of the first monograph on gerontopsychology in the USSR. In 1937, he married a student of the Faculty of Physics, Marianna Leonidovna Georg. Together they had two children: Daria (b. 1948) andDaniil (RU) (b. 1957).[4] In 1980, he married Svetlana Mikhailovna Vladimirova (nee Bogacheva). In 1951 he became a member of theCommunist Party.
Alekandrov had a personal love for poetry, writing and translating.[5] Once, on a trip to London, he was received as a visiting Shakespeare scholar.[4] He was also very well travelled, visiting India, the US, and throughout Europe.[4]
He graduated from the Department of Physics ofLeningrad State University. His advisors there wereVladimir Fock, a physicist, andBoris Delaunay, a mathematician. In 1933 Aleksandrov worked at theState Optical Institute (GOI) and at the same time gave lectures at the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of the university. He completed hisPh.D. in 1935 at the university and later in 1937 — aD.Sc. dissertation. He became a professor at the university, while also working atLOMI, the Leningrad Department of theSteklov Mathematical Institute (now PDMI,Petersburg Department of the Mathematical Institute). Appointed therector of the university in 1952, Aleksandrov remained in this position until 1964. He was the youngest rector in university history, and was fairly popular. One of his main contributions was the attempted move of Leningrad State University to Old Peterhof, which proved unsuccessful.[3] In 1946 he became a corresponding member, and in 1964 afull member of theUSSR Academy of Sciences. Since 1975 he was also a member of theAccademia dei Quaranta.[6]
From 1964 to 1986 Aleksandrov lived inNovosibirsk, heading the Laboratory ofGeometry of the Institute of Mathematics of theSiberian Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences, teaching atNovosibirsk State University. In 1986 he returned to Leningrad (nowSaint Petersburg) to head the geometry laboratory at LOMI.[7]
Aleksandrov's main work was in the study of differential geometry and physics. His work in geometry specifically is said to be second only to Gauss by N. V. Efimov, V. A. Zalgaller and A. V. Pogorelov.[2]
Partial list of the awards,medals, and prizes awarded to Aleksandrov:
One of the manyorders that he was awarded was given to him in 1990 for his efforts in preserving genetics from the attacks of the pseudoscience ofLysenkoism that had official state support in the times ofStalin andKhrushchev.
Aleksandrov wrote a multitude of books, scientific papers,textbooks for various levels (schools to universities), includingConvex Polyhedra, originally published in Russian in 1950 and translated into English in 2005. He also wrote non-mathematical papers,memoirs about famous scientists, and philosophicalessays dealing with the moral values of science.
A full bibliography is available in[1]. Selected works are available in English:
Both in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk Aleksandrov participated in joint research also with some of his students' students. Several of them became his co-authors: V. Berestovskii, A. Verner, N. Netsvetaev, I. Nikolaev, and V. Ryzhik.
His last Ph.D. student wasGrigori Perelman who provedThurston's geometrization conjecture in 2002/2003 which contains thePoincaré conjecture as a special case.
Aleksandrov became attracted to alpinism under the influence of his advisorBoris Delaunay. In the summer of 1937, after defending his D.Sc.,
During his rectorship, Aleksandrov also advanced the mountaineering sport activities in the university, actively participating in the climbs.
The fiftieth birthday was celebrated by Aleksandrov in the mountains with his friends. On that day he made a solo first climb of an
During later years Aleksandrov was unable to climb due to health problems, yet he never ceased dreaming of climbing. Finally, in 1982, the year of his seventieth birthday, he, together with K. Tolstov, performed inTian Shan his last climb, of thePanfilov Peak…[9]
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