Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov (russian: Алекса́ндр Дани́лович Алекса́ндров, alternative

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

s: ''Alexandr'' or ''Alexander'' (first name), and ''Alexandrov'' (last name)) (4 August 1912 – 27 July 1999) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

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 ...

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 cau ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and

mountaineer Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...

Personal Life

Aleksandr Aleksandrov was born in 1912 in Volyn,

Ryazan Oblast Ryazan Oblast ( rus, Рязанская область, r=Ryazanskaya oblast, p=rʲɪˈzanskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Ryazan, which is the oblast's largest city. Geo ...

. His father was a headmaster of a secondary school in

St 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 ...

and his mother a teacher at said school, thus the young Alekandrov spent a majority of his childhood in the city. His family was old Russian nobility—students noted ancestral portraits which hung in his office. His sisters were Soviet botanist Vera Danilovna Aleksandrov (RU) and Maria Danilovna Aleksandrova, author of the first monograph on gerontopsychology in the USSR. In 1937, he married a student of the Faculty of Physics, Marianna Leonidovna Georg. Together they had two children: Daria (b. 1948) and Daniil (RU) (b. 1957). In 1980, he married Svetlana Mikhailovna Vladimirova (nee Bogacheva). In 1951 he became a member of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

. Alekandrov had a personal love for poetry, writing and translating. Once, on a trip to London, he was received as a visiting Shakespeare scholar! He was also very well travelled, visiting India, the US, and throughout Europe.

Scientific career

He graduated from the Department of Physics of

Leningrad 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 G ...

. His advisors there were Vladimir Fock, a physicist, and

Boris Delaunay Boris Nikolayevich Delaunay or Delone (russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Делоне́; 15 March 1890 – 17 July 1980) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician, mountain climber, and the father of physicist, Nikolai Borisovich Delone. ...

, a mathematician. In 1933 Aleksandrov worked at the State Optical Institute (GOI) and at the same time gave lectures at the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of the University. He completed his Ph.D. in 1935 at the University and later in 1937 — a

D.Sc. Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

dissertation. He became a professor at the University, while also working at LOMI, the Leningrad Department of the Steklov Mathematical Institute (now PDMI, Petersburg Department of the Mathematical Institute). Appointed the rector of the university in 1952, Aleksandrov remained in this position until 1964. He was the youngest rector in university history, and was fairly popular. One of his main contributions was the attempted move of Leningrad State University to Old Peterhof, which proved unsuccessful. In 1946 he became a corresponding member, and in 1964 a full member of the

USSR Academy of Sciences 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 ...

. Since1975 he was also a member of the Accademia dei Quaranta. From 1964 to 1986 Aleksandrov lived in

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk (, also ; rus, Новосиби́рск, p=nəvəsʲɪˈbʲirsk, a=ru-Новосибирск.ogg) is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Censu ...

, heading the Laboratory of

Geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

of the Institute of Mathematics of the

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

n Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences, teaching at

Novosibirsk State University Novosibirsk State University is a public research university located in Novosibirsk, Russia. The university was founded in 1958, on the principles of integration of education and science, early involvement of students with research activities an ...

. In 1986 he returned to Leningrad (now

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 ...

) to head the geometry laboratory at LOMI. Aleksandrov's main work was in the study of differential geometry and physics. His work in geometry specifically is said to be second only to Gauss by N V Efimov, V A Zalgaller and A V Pogorelov.

Awards

Partial list of the awards,

medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...

s, and prizes awarded to Aleksandrov: *

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, ...

(1942) * Lobachevsky International Prize (1951) * Euler Gold Medal of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

(1992) One of the many

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...

s that he was awarded was given to him in 1990 for his efforts in preserving genetics from the attacks of the pseudoscience of

Lysenkoism Lysenkoism (russian: Лысенковщина, Lysenkovshchina, ; uk, лисенківщина, lysenkivščyna, ) was a political campaign led by Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko against genetics and science-based agriculture in the mid-20th ce ...

that had official state support in the times of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

and

Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev st ...

Works by Aleksandrov

Aleksandrov wrote a multitude of books, scientific papers,

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

s for various levels (schools to universities), including ''Convex Polyhedra'', originally published in Russian in 1950 and translated into English in 2005. He also wrote non-mathematical papers,

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

s about famous scientists, and philosophical

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s dealing with the moral values of science. A full bibliography is available in /nowiki>. Selected works are available in English: * Alexandrov, A.D. Selected works. Part 1: Selected scientific papers. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers. x, 322 p. (1996). * Alexandrov, A.D. Selected works. Intrinsic geometry of convex surfaces. Vol. 2. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall/CRC. xiii, 426 p. (2005). * Alexandrov, A.D. Convex polyhedra. Springer: Berlin. xi, 539 p. (2005). (1st edition, 1950) * Alexandrov, A.D. Die innere Geometrie der konvexen Flächen. Akademie Verlag. (1955). (German translation of 1948 Russian original)

Students of Aleksandrov

* I. Liberman, S. Olovianishnikoff, P. Kostelyanetz — all the three of them died on the battlefields of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

* A. Pogorelov — from

Kharkov Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.

* A. Yusupov — from

Bukhara Bukhara ( Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city ...

* Students from the Aleksandrov Leningrad period (ordered by the time of joining the

seminar A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...

s): Yu. Borisov, V. Zalgaller, Yu. Reshetnyak, I. Bakelman, Yu. Volkov, A. Zamorzaev, S. Bogacheva (who later married Aleksandrov), Yu. Borovskii, R. Pimenov * Sobchuk and Starokhozyayev — from

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

* G. Rusiyeshvili — from

Georgia (country) Georgia (, ; ) is a transcontinental country at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is part of the Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to the west, by Russia to the north and northeast, by Turkey to the southwes ...

* B. Frank and H. Frank — from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

* Yu. Burago, V. Kreinovich;

Grigori Perelman Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman ( rus, links=no, Григорий Яковлевич Перельман, p=ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪtɕ pʲɪrʲɪlʲˈman, a=Ru-Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman.oga; born 13 June 1966) is a Russian mathemati ...

* Moved from

Alma-Ata Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1936 as an autonomous republic as part of t ...

after Aleksandrov's lecture tour there: M. Kvachko, V. Ovchinnikova, E. Sen'kin * Stayed in Alma-Ata: A. Zilberberg, V. Strel'cov, D. Yusupov * Novosibirsk students: A. Guts, A. Kuz'minykh, A. Levichev, and A. Shaidenko. Both in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk Aleksandrov participated in joint research also with some of his students' students. Several of them became his co-authors: V. Berestovskii, A. Verner, N. Netsvetaev, I. Nikolaev, and V. Ryzhik. His last Ph.D. student was

who proved Thurston's geometrization conjecture in 2002/2003 which contains the

Poincaré conjecture In the mathematical field of geometric topology, the Poincaré conjecture (, , ) is a theorem about the characterization of the 3-sphere, which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space. Originally conjectured ...

as a special case.

Mountaineering

Aleksandrov became attracted to alpinism under the influence of his advisor

. In the summer of 1937, after defending his D.Sc., :''…together with I. Chashnikov he makes a first climb to the Chotchi summit, and with K. Piskaryov performs a climb of Bu-Ul'gen via the western wall (one of the first wall climbs in the history of the Soviet alpinism).
��/nowiki> In 1940 he participates in a record-making traversal ��/nowiki> He manages, almost by a miracle, to stop the fall of A. Gromov, who had fallen along with a snow shelf. It was with this traversal that Aleksandrov completed the alpinist sports master requirements. The German-Soviet War postponed awarding him this honorary title until 1949.'' During his rectorship, Aleksandrov also advanced the mountaineering sport activities in the university, actively participating in the climbs. The fiftieth birthday was celebrated by Aleksandrov in the mountains with his friends. On that day he made a solo first climb of an : ''…unnamed peak 6222 m (Shakhdarinsk ridge, Pamir), that as he suggested was then named "The peak of the Leningrad university."'' During later years Aleksandrov was unable to climb due to health problems, yet he never ceased dreaming of climbing. Finally, in 1982, the year of his seventieth birthday, he, together with K. Tolstov, performed in

Tian Shan The Tian Shan,, , otk, 𐰴𐰣 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, , tr, Tanrı Dağı, mn, Тэнгэр уул, , ug, تەڭرىتاغ, , , kk, Тәңіртауы / Алатау, , , ky, Теңир-Тоо / Ала-Тоо, , , uz, Tyan-Shan / Tangritog‘ ...

his last climb, of the Panfilov Peak…

References

# ''Академик Александр Данилович Александров. Воспоминания. Публикации. Материалы. ''(Academician Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov. Recollections. Publications. Biographical materials, in Russian). Editors: G.M. Idlis and O.A. Ladyzhenskaya. Moscow, ''Nauka'' publishing house, 2002. # Yu. F. Borisov,
On the 90th anniversary of the birth of A.D. Aleksandrov (1912–1999)
, ''Russ. Math. Surv.'', 2002, 57 (5), 1017–1031. # Yu. F. Borisov, V.A. Zalgaller, Kutateladze, S.S., O.A. Ladyzhenskaya, A.V. Pogorelov, Yu. G. Reshetnyak,
К 90-летию со дня рождения А.Д. Александрова (1912–1999)
, ''Uspekhi Mat. Nauk'', 2002, 57 (5), 169–181. # Liyun Tan and Shuhuang Xiang
''On the Aleksandrov-Rassias problem and the Hyers-Ulam-Rassias stability problem''
Banach Journal of Mathematical Analysis, 1(1)(2007), 11–22. # A.M. Vershik,
Alexander Danilovich as I knew him (in Russian).
, St. Petersburg University, No. 3-4 (2004), 36–40. # Shuhuang, Xiang
''On the Aleksandrov-Rassias problem for isometric mappings''
Functional Equations, Inequalities and Applications, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 2003, pp. 191–221.

External links

* (with additional photos) * (incomplete students listing as of December 2004)
Review of Alexandrov's ''"Convex Polytopes"''
– by R. Connelly, published at the

Mathematical Reviews ''Mathematical Reviews'' is a journal published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) that contains brief synopses, and in some cases evaluations, of many articles in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science. The AMS also pu ...

.
Alexandr Danilovich Alexandrov
– biography, reminiscences, references (from St. Petersburg Mathematical Society website)

– by S.S. Kutateladze
Alexandrov Par Excellence
– by S.S. Kutateladze
Alexandrov of Ancient Hellas
– by S.S. Kutateladze
Author profile
in the database zbMATH
The Rector (a film)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleksandrov, Aleksandr Danilovich 1912 births 1999 deaths People from Rybnovsky District People from Ryazansky Uyezd Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, 1959–1963 20th-century Russian philosophers Differential geometers Soviet mathematicians Soviet mountain climbers Soviet physicists Saint Petersburg State University alumni Rectors of Saint Petersburg State University Herzen University faculty Novosibirsk State University academic personnel Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Stalin Prize winners Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples Recipients of the Order of Honour (Russia) Burials at Bogoslovskoe Cemetery