Sergei Sobolev (nonfiction)

Sergei Lvovich Sobolev.

Prof Sergei Lvovich Sobolev (Russian: Серге́й Льво́вич Со́болев) HFRSE (6 October 1908 – 3 January 1989) was a Soviet mathematician working in mathematical analysis and partial differential equations.

Sobolev introduced notions that are now fundamental for several areas of mathematics. Sobolev spaces can be defined by some growth conditions on the Fourier transform. They and their embedding theorems are an important subject in functional analysis. Generalized functions (later known as distributions) were first introduced by Sobolev in 1935 for weak solutions, and further developed by Laurent Schwartz. Sobolev abstracted the classical notion of differentiation, so expanding the range of application of the technique of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The theory of distributions is considered now as the calculus of the modern epoch.

Life

He was born in St. Petersburg the son of Lev Alexandrovich Sobolev. a lawyer, and his wife, Natalya Georgievna. His city was renamed Petrograd in his youth and then Leningrad in 1924.

Sobolev studied Mathematics at Leningrad University and graduated in 1929, having studied under Prof Nikolai Günther. After graduation he worked with Vladimir Smirnov, whom he considered as his second teacher. He worked in Leningrad from 1932, and at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow from 1934. He headed the institute in evacuation to Kazan during the World War II. He was a Moscow State University Professor of Mathematics from 1935 to 1957 and also a deputy director of the Institute for Atomic Energy from 1943 to 1957 where he participated in the A-bomb project of the USSR.

In 1956 Sobolev joined a number of scientists in proposing a large-scale scientific and educational initiative for the Eastern parts of the Soviet Union, which resulted in the creation of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences. He was the founder and first director of the Institute of Mathematics at Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, which was later to bear his name, and played an important role in the establishment and development of Novosibirsk State University.

He died in Moscow.

Family

In 1930 he married Ariadna Dmitrievna.

Publications

In 1955 he co-wrote "The Main Features of Cybernetics" with Alexey Lyapunov and Anatoly Kitov which was published in Voprosy filosofii.

In 1962 he called for a reform of the Soviet education system.

See also

• Sobolev conjugate
• Sobolev embedding theorem
• Sobolev generalized derivative
• Sobolev inequality
• Sobolev space

Fiction cross-reference

• Crimes against mathematical constants
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Mathematician
• Mathematics

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Leonid Kantorovich (nonfiction) - Doctoral student
• Solomon Mikhlin (nonfiction) - Doctoral student
• Mathematician (nonfiction)
• Mathematics (nonfiction)
• Sergei Sobolev (nonfiction) - Doctoral student
• Vladimir Steklov (nonfiction) - Doctoral advisor

External links:

• Sergei Sobolev @ Wikipedia