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Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann (also spelled Friedman or Fridman ; russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Фри́дман) (June 16 .S. 4 1888 – September 16, 1925) was a
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
and
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
and mathematician. He is best known for his pioneering theory that the universe was expanding, governed by a set of equations he developed now known as the Friedmann equations.


Early life

Alexander Friedmann was born to the composer and ballet dancer Alexander Friedmann (who was a son of a baptized Jewish
cantonist Cantonists (Russian language: кантонисты; more properly: военные кантонисты, "military cantonists") were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "canton schools" (К ...
) and the pianist Ludmila Ignatievna Voyachek (who was a daughter of the Czech composer Hynek Vojáček). Friedmann was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church as an infant, and lived much of his life in Saint Petersburg. Friedmann obtained his degree from
St. Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the ...
in 1910, and became a lecturer at
Saint Petersburg Mining Institute Saint Petersburg Mining University (russian: Санкт-Петербургский горный университет), is Russia's oldest technical university, and one of the oldest technical colleges in Europe. It was founded on October 21, ...
. From his school days, Friedmann found a lifelong companion in Jacob Tamarkin, who was also a distinguished mathematician.


World War I

Friedmann fought in World War I on behalf of Imperial Russia, as an army aviator, an instructor and eventually, under the revolutionary regime, as the head of an airplane factory.


Professorship

Friedmann in 1922 introduced the idea of an expanding universe that contained moving matter. Correspondence with Einstein suggests that Einstein was unwilling to accept the idea of an evolving Universe and worked instead to modify his equations to ensure a static eternal Universe as believed from Newton's time. Some years later, in 1926 Hubble published the redshift vs distance relationship, namely, all the galaxies in the neighborhood seemed to be receding at a rate proportional to their distance, formalising an observation made earlier by Carl Wilhelm Wirtz. It may be noted that in 1927 Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître also independently reached the conclusion of an evolving Universe. In June 1925 Friedmann was given the job of the director of Main Geophysical Observatory in Leningrad. In July 1925 he participated in a record-setting balloon flight, reaching the elevation of .Davidson et al., ''A Voyage Through Turbulence'', Cambridge University Press, , September 2011 (for a partial and legal excerpt of the book, see


Work

Friedmann's 1924 papers, including "" ("On the possibility of a world with constant negative curvature of space") published by the German physics journal ''
Zeitschrift für Physik ''Zeitschrift für Physik'' (English: ''Journal for Physics'') is a defunct series of German peer-reviewed physics journals established in 1920 by Springer Berlin Heidelberg. The series stopped publication in 1997, when it merged with other jour ...
'' (Vol. 21, pp. 326–332), demonstrated that he had command of all three Friedmann models describing positive, zero and negative curvature respectively, a decade before
Robertson Robertson may refer to: People * Robertson (surname) (includes a list of people with this name) * Robertson (given name) * Clan Robertson, a Scottish clan * Robertson, stage name of Belgian magician Étienne-Gaspard Robert (1763–1837) Place ...
and
Walker Walker or The Walker may refer to: People *Walker (given name) * Walker (surname) * Walker (Brazilian footballer) (born 1982), Brazilian footballer Places In the United States * Walker, Arizona, in Yavapai County * Walker, Mono County, Californ ...
published their analysis. This dynamic
cosmological Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
model of general relativity would come to form the standard for both the
Big Bang The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...
and Steady State theories. Friedmann's work supported both theories equally, so it was not until the detection of the
cosmic microwave background radiation In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space ...
that the Steady State theory was abandoned in favor of the current favorite Big Bang paradigm. The classic
solution Solution may refer to: * Solution (chemistry), a mixture where one substance is dissolved in another * Solution (equation), in mathematics ** Numerical solution, in numerical analysis, approximate solutions within specified error bounds * Solutio ...
of the Einstein field equations that describes a homogeneous and isotropic universe wass called the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric, or ''FLRW'', after Friedmann, Georges Lemaître,
Howard P. Robertson Howard Percy "Bob" Robertson (January 27, 1903 – August 26, 1961) was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the C ...
and
Arthur Geoffrey Walker Prof Arthur Geoffrey Walker FRS FRSE (17 July 1909 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England – 31 March 2001) was a British mathematician who made important contributions to physics and physical cosmology. Although he was an accomplished geomete ...
, who worked on the problem in 1920s and 30s independently of Friedmann. In addition to general relativity, Friedmann's interests included
hydrodynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) and ...
and
meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...
. Physicists
George Gamow George Gamow (March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov ( uk, Георгій Антонович Гамов, russian: Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a Russian-born Soviet and American polymath, theoret ...
,
Vladimir Fock Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock (or Fok; russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Фок) (December 22, 1898 – December 27, 1974) was a Soviet physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamic ...
and Lev Vasilievich Keller were among his students.


Personal life and death

In 1911, he married Ekaterina Dorofeeva, though he later divorced her. He married Natalia Malinina in 1923. They had a religious wedding ceremony, though both were far from religious. Friedmann died on September 16, 1925 from misdiagnosed typhoid fever. He had allegedly contracted the bacteria on his way back from his honeymoon in
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a po ...
when he ate an unwashed pear he bought from a railway station.


Legacy

The moon crater Fridman is named after him Alexander Friedmann International Seminar is a periodical scientific event. The objective of the meeting is to promote contacts between scientists working in the field of Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology and related fields. The First Alexander Friedmann International Seminar on Gravitation and Cosmology devoted to the centenary of his birth took place in 1988. During the
2022 COVID-19 protests in China A series of protests against COVID-19 lockdowns began in mainland China in November 2022. Colloquially referred to as the White Paper Protests ( zh, s=白纸抗议, p=Bái zhǐ kàngyì) or the A4 Revolution ( zh, link=no, s=白纸革命, p=Bá ...
,
Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Project ...
students were seen displaying Friedmann's equation as if it were a protest slogan, which was understood as an
evasion of censorship Evasion may refer to: *''Evade'', a 1960s board game in the 3M bookshelf game series *'' Évadé'', the term given to French and Belgian nationals fleeing German-occupied Europe *Évasion, a Canadian French-language travel and adventure televisi ...
by punning multilingually on "free man" and referring to liberalization and opening via the expansion of the universe.https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvma7q/china-zero-covid-protest-signs


Selected publications

*. English translation in: The original Russian manuscript of this paper is preserved in th
Ehrenfest archive
together with some letters and unpublished work. *. English translation in:


References


Bibliography

* * *


External links



* * ttps://books.google.com/books?id=hvKzeJouZ9UC&pg=PA16 ''How Do We Know the Age of the Universe'' – Mary Lynn Germadnik {{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Alexander Alexandrovich 1888 births 1925 deaths Soviet mathematicians 20th-century Russian mathematicians Russian relativity theorists Soviet physicists Scientists from Saint Petersburg Pennsylvania State University faculty Russian people of Jewish descent Russian people of Czech descent Lenin Prize winners