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Mikhail Fedorovich Subbotin (russian: Михаил Фёдорович Субботин, 29 June 1893 – 26 December 1966) was a
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 national ...
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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
and
astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...
who calculated orbits of planets and
comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...
s. He worked on general properties of motion in the ''n''-body problem.


Biography and education

Subbotin was born on 29 June 1893 in Ostrolenka, Russian Empire (now Ostrołęka, Poland). Mikhail Fedorovich Subbotin studied in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the
University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...
in 1910 and graduated in 1914. He had an interest also in astronomy and worked as a calculator at the university observatory. After graduating he continued on as a junior astronomer. His father was an army officer, Fedor Subbotin. After the German army invaded Poland, the University of Warsaw was evacuated to
Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East ...
in 1915. Subbotin completed his
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
there in 1917. During this time he published two papers, “On the determination of singular points of analytic functions” and another on singular points of certain
differential equations In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, a ...
. He then moved to the Donskoy Polytechnic Institute (
Novocherkassk Novocherkassk (russian: Новочерка́сск, lit. ''New Cherkassk'') is a city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located near the confluence of the Tuzlov and Aksay Rivers, the latter a distributary of the Don River. Novocherkassk is best known ...
) where he ultimately was appointed a professor of mathematics. In 1922, he accepted an offer to go work at the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences as Director in
Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...
. Before the outbreak of World War II he worked at various astronomical institutions in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). Subbotin stayed in Leningrad and almost starved to death during the siege by the Germans and was finally evacuated in February 1942 to Sverdlovsk to recover. Near the end of 1942 Subbotin became the Director of the Leningrad Astronomical Institute, relocated to
Saratov Saratov (, ; rus, Сара́тов, a=Ru-Saratov.ogg, p=sɐˈratəf) is the largest city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River upstream (north) of Volgograd. Saratov had a population of 901 ...
before it was finally brought back to Leningrad after the German withdrawal. He received the
Order of the Red Banner of Labor The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the ...
(06/10/1945). In 1963 he was awarded the
Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration ...
. Subbotin died on 26 December 1966 in then Leningrad, USSR (now
Saint Petersburg, Russia 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 ...
). A memorial plaque was installed at his house at Moskovsky Prospect 206 in 1971 (architect V. V. Isaeva)


Works

He started his career working on the
theory of functions Function theory may refer to: * Theory of functions of a real variable, the traditional name of real analysis, a branch of mathematical analysis dealing with the real numbers and real-valued functions of a real variable * Theory of functions of a ...
and probability. He worked on the creation of a catalog of faint stars. As he moved more to astronomy he concentrated on
celestial mechanics Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of objects in outer space. Historically, celestial mechanics applies principles of physics (classical mechanics) to astronomical objects, such as stars and planets, to ...
to devise new methods to calculate orbits from three observations based on solving the Euler–Lambert equations. “... Subbotin not only showed the possibility of improving the convergence of the trigonometric series by which the behaviour of perturbing forces is represented, but also gave an expression for determining
Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summariz ...
coefficients and presented formulas for computing the coefficients of the necessary members of the trigonometric series.” Subbotin wrote a three-volume work called “Course in Celestial Mechanics" (1933–49), in which for the first time in Russian the main questions of celestial mechanics were described in detail. He was the author of a number of fundamental studies on the history of astronomy. He was the editor-in-chief of the Astronomical Yearbook of the USSR, published by the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
. He engaged in painting, in which he reached the level of a professional artist.


Celestial objects named after Subbotin

*
1692 Subbotina 1692 Subbotina, provisional designation , is a dark background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. The carbonaceous Cg-type asteroid has a rotation period of 9.2 hours. It was discovered by Grigo ...
, is a carbonaceous asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 37 kilometers in diameter. *'' Subbotin'' is a 67 km-wide lunar crater on the far side of the Moon.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Subbotin, Mikhail Soviet astronomers Soviet mathematicians People from Płock Governorate 1893 births 1966 deaths