Mathematician Vladimir Arnold dies in France
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Mathematician Vladimir Arnold, perhaps one of the best known and highly cited Russian scientist, has died yesterday today at the age of 72. He was receiving treatment in France, but his disease was stronger, reports lenta.ru, citing a source close to the family. Arnold was one of the greatest mathematicians of the XX century and the author of the series of works on the topology, theory of differential equations, algebraic geometry, theory of smooth maps and classical mechanics. Many of his works are classic graduate textbooks:
- V. I. Arnold, Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Springer-Verlag (1989), ISBN 0−387−96890−3.
- V. I. Arnold, Geometrical Methods In The Theory Of Ordinary Differential Equations, Springer-Verlag (1988), ISBN 0−387−96649−8.
- V. I. Arnold, Ordinary Differential Equations, The MIT Press (1978), ISBN 0−262−51018−9.
- V. I. Arnold, A. Avez, Ergodic Problems of Classical Mechanics, Addison-Wesley (1989), ISBN 0−201−09406−1.
Please see full list at Amazon. However, there many more in russian that yet to be translated.
He received acclaim back in 1957, when he was a student at Moscow State University. He managed to prove that any continuous function of several variables can be constructed with a finite number of two-variable functions. His solution helped his teacher Andrey Kolmogorov solve the so-called Hilbert’s Thirteenth Problem. He is also famous for formulating several mathematical problems, for example, the so-called Folding Ruble Problem, or Margulis Napkin problem, as it is known in mathematical literature.[1] It asks for proof that a square cannot be folded in such a way that the resulting figure has a greater perimeter than the original one.
During his last years, Arnold worked at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow and Université Paris Dauphine in France.
References:
1. Tabachnikov, S. (2007). Arnold’s Problem The Mathematical Intelligencer, 29 (1), 49–52 DOI: 10.1007/BF02984760
3rd June, 2010