Platon Sergeevich Poretsky (; 3 October 1846 in

Elisavetgrad Kropyvnytskyi (, ) is a city in central Ukraine, situated on the Inhul River. It serves as the administrative center of Kirovohrad Oblast. Population: Over its history, Kropyvnytskyi has changed its name several times. The settlement was k ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– 9 August 1907 in

Gorodnyansky Uyezd Gorodnyansky Uyezd (; ) was one of the subdivisions of the Chernigov Governorate of the Russian Empire. It was situated in the western part of the governorate. Its administrative centre was Gorodnya (Horodnia). Demographics At the time of the R ...

Chernigov Governorate Chernigov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. It was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Little Russia Governorate (1796-1802), Little Russia Governorate and had its capital in Cher ...

, Russian Empire) was a noted

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Imperial

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

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

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arg ...

. Graduated from

Kharkov University The V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (), also known as Kharkiv National University or Karazin University, is a public university in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It was founded in 1804 through the efforts of Vasily Karazin, becoming the second old ...

, he worked in

Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...

and

Pulkovo Pulkovo may refer to: *Pulkovo Heights marking the southern limit of Saint Petersburg, Russia *Pulkovo Airport serving Saint Petersburg, Russia * Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise, a former (until 2006) state airline based in Saint Petersburg, Russia *Pu ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. Later, as an astronomer at

Kazan University Kazan Federal University (; ) is a public research university located in Kazan, Russia. The university was founded in 1804 as Imperial Kazan University, which makes it the second oldest continuously existing tertiary education institution in Rus ...

, following the advice of his older colleague Professor of Mathematics A. V. Vasiliev at

(father of Nicolai A. Vasiliev) to learn the works of

George Boole George Boole ( ; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Ireland. H ...

, Poretsky developed "logical calculus" and through specific "logical equations" applied it to the

theory of probability Probability theory or probability calculus 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 expre ...

. Thus, he extended and augmented the works of logicians and mathematicians George Boole,

William Stanley Jevons William Stanley Jevons (; 1 September 1835 – 13 August 1882) was an English economist and logician. Irving Fisher described Jevons's book ''A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy'' (1862) as the start of the mathematical method i ...

and Ernst Schröder (known as Boole–Jevons–Schröder–Poretsky method). He discovered Poretsky's law of forms and gave the first general treatment of antecedent and consequent Boolean reasoning, laying the groundwork for Archie Blake's work on the

Blake canonical form In Boolean logic, a Formula (mathematical logic), formula for a Boolean function ''f'' is in Blake canonical form (BCF), also called the complete sum of prime implicants, the complete sum, or the disjunctive prime form, when it is a logical di ...

References

External links

Platon Poretsky
at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive * S. L. Katrechko
Platon Sergeevich Poretskij
19th-century astronomers from the Russian Empire 19th-century mathematicians from the Russian Empire Academic staff of Kazan Federal University Scientists from Kropyvnytskyi National University of Kharkiv alumni People from the Russian Empire of Ukrainian descent 1846 births 1907 deaths 20th-century Russian astronomers {{Russia-mathematician-stub

References

Further reading

External links