Leonid Vitalyevich Kantorovich ( rus, Леони́д Вита́льевич Канторо́вич, , p=lʲɪɐˈnʲit vʲɪˈtalʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kəntɐˈrovʲɪtɕ, a=Ru-Leonid_Vitaliyevich_Kantorovich.ogg; 19 January 19127 April 1986) was a
Soviet mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
and
economist, known for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources. He is regarded as the founder of
linear programming. He was the winner of the
Stalin Prize Stalin Prize may refer to:
* The State Stalin Prize in science and engineering and in arts, awarded 1941 to 1954, later known as the USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, ...
in 1949 and the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
in 1975.
Biography
Kantorovich was born on 19 January 1912, to a
Russian Jewish family. His father was a doctor practicing in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. In 1926, at the age of fourteen, he began his studies at
Leningrad State University. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in 1930, and began his graduate studies. In 1934, at the age of 22 years, he became a full professor.
Later, Kantorovich worked for the
Soviet government
The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...
. He was given the task of
optimizing
Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...
production in a
plywood industry. He devised the mathematical technique now known as
linear programming in 1939, some years before it was advanced by
George Dantzig
George Bernard Dantzig (; November 8, 1914 – May 13, 2005) was an American mathematical scientist who made contributions to industrial engineering, operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics.
Dantzig is known for his ...
. He authored several books including ''The Mathematical Method of Production Planning and Organization'' (Russian original 1939), ''The Best Uses of Economic Resources'' (Russian original 1959), and, with Vladimir Ivanovich Krylov, ''Approximate methods of higher analysis'' (Russian original 1936). For his work, Kantorovich was awarded the
Stalin Prize Stalin Prize may refer to:
* The State Stalin Prize in science and engineering and in arts, awarded 1941 to 1954, later known as the USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, ...
in 1949.
After 1939, he became a professor at
Military Engineering-Technical University. During the
Siege of Leningrad, Kantorovich was a professor at
VITU of Navy and worked on safety of the
Road of Life
The Road of Life () was the set of ice road transport routes across Lake Ladoga to Leningrad during the Second World War. They were the only Soviet winter surface routes into the city while it was besieged by the German Army Group North under ...
. He calculated the optimal distance between cars on ice in dependence of the thickness of ice and the temperature of the air. In December 1941 and January 1942, Kantorovich walked himself between cars driving on the ice of Lake Ladoga on the
Road of Life
The Road of Life () was the set of ice road transport routes across Lake Ladoga to Leningrad during the Second World War. They were the only Soviet winter surface routes into the city while it was besieged by the German Army Group North under ...
to ensure that cars did not sink. However, many cars with food for survivors of the siege were destroyed by the
German airstrikes. In 1948 Kantorovich was assigned to the atomic project of the USSR. For his feat and courage Kantorovich was awarded the
Order of the Patriotic War, and was decorated with the medal ''For Defense of Leningrad''.
After 1960, Kantorovich lived and worked in
Novosibirsk, where he created and took charge of the Department of Computational Mathematics in
Novosibirsk State University.
Kantorovich`s biography in Russian
/ref>
The Nobel Memorial Prize, which he shared with Tjalling Koopmans, was given "for their contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources."
Mathematics
In mathematical analysis
Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...
, Kantorovich had important results in functional analysis, approximation theory, and operator theory
In mathematics, operator theory is the study of linear operators on function spaces, beginning with differential operators and integral operators. The operators may be presented abstractly by their characteristics, such as bounded linear operators ...
.
In particular, Kantorovich formulated some fundamental results in the theory of normed vector lattices, especially in Dedekind complete vector lattices called "K-spaces" which are now referred to as "Kantorovich spaces" in his honor.
Kantorovich showed that functional analysis could be used in the analysis of iterative methods, obtaining the Kantorovich inequalities on the convergence rate of the gradient method and of Newton's method (see the Kantorovich theorem).
Kantorovich considered infinite-dimensional optimization problems, such as the Kantorovich-Monge problem in transport theory. His analysis proposed the Kantorovich-Rubinstein metric, which is used in probability theory
Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...
, in the theory of the weak convergence of probability measures.
Image:Kantorovich (Petrov-Vodkin).jpg, Portrait by Petrov-Vodkin. 1938.
Image:Leonid Kantorovich 1976.jpg, 1976
File:Espionage den04 40.png, Original CIA file on Kantorovich, seized from the former US Embassy in Tehran.
See also
* List of Russian mathematicians
* List of economists
* Shadow price
A shadow price is the monetary value assigned to an abstract or intangible commodity which is not traded in the marketplace. This often takes the form of an externality. Shadow prices are also known as the recalculation of known market prices in o ...
Notes
References
*
*
* Kantorovich, L.V. (1959).
"The Best Use of Economic Resources"
'(). Pergamon Press, 1965.
* Klaus Hagendorf (2008)
Spreadsheet presenting all examples of Kantorovich
1939 with the OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
Calc Solver as well as the lp_solver.
;Nobel prize lecture
* Kantorovich, Leonid
"Mathematics in Economics: Achievements, Difficulties, Perspectives"
Nobel Prize lecture, December 11, 1975
Nobel Prize website
Further reading
* Dantzig, George,
Linear programming and extensions
'. Princeton University Press and the RAND Corporation, 1963. Cf
p.22
for the work of Kantorovich.
* Isbell, J.R.; Marlow, W.H.
"On an Industrial Programming Problem of Kantorovich"
''Management Science'', Vol. 8, No. 1 (Oct., 1961), pp. 13–17
*
* Koopmans, Tjalling C.
"Concepts of optimality and their uses"
Nobel Memorial Lecture, December 11, 1975
* Kutateladze, S.S.
"The World Line of Kantorovich"
''Notices of the ISMS'', International Society for Mathematical Sciences, Osaka, Japan, January 2007
* Kutateladze, S.S.
"Kantorovich's Phenomenon"
''Siberian Math. J.'' (Сибирский мат. журн.), 2007, V. 48, No. 1, 3–4, November 29, 2006.
* Kutateladze, S.S.
"Mathematics and Economics of Kantorovich"
* Kutateladze, S.S.
"My Kantorovich"
*
*
*
* Ivan Boldyrev and Till Düppe
Programming the USSR: Leonid V. Kantorovich in context
The British Journal for the History of Science. 2020. 53(2): 255-278.
*
* Kutateladze, S.S., et al.
"Leonid V. Kantorovich (1912–1986)"
Sobolev Institute of Mathematics of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Also published in the ''Siberian Mathematical Journal'', Volume 43 (2002), No. 1, pp. 3–8
* Vershik, Anatoly
"On Leonid Kantorovich and linear programming"
External links
*
* (With additional photos.)
– IDEAS/RePEc
*
Biography Leonid Kantorovich
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
Biographical documentary about L.Kantorovich
by '' Rossiya-Culture''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kantorovich, Leonid
1912 births
1986 deaths
20th-century Russian economists
20th-century Russian mathematicians
Mathematicians from Saint Petersburg
People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Military Engineering-Technical University faculty
Novosibirsk State University academic personnel
Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Saint Petersburg State University faculty
Nobel laureates in Economics
Stalin Prize winners
Lenin Prize winners
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Approximation theorists
Functional analysts
General equilibrium theorists
Mathematical economists
Operations researchers
Operator theorists
Variational analysts
Russian economists
Russian Jews
Russian mathematicians
Soviet economists
Soviet Jews
Soviet mathematicians
Soviet Nobel laureates
Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery