Alexander Yakovlevich Lerner (; 7 September 1913,

Vinnytsia Vinnytsia ( ; , ) is a city in west-central Ukraine, located on the banks of the Southern Bug. It serves as the administrative centre, administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast. It is the largest city in the historic region of Podillia. It also s ...

, Russian Empire – 6 April 2004,

Rehovot Rehovot (, / ) is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of . Etymology Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu (movement), Bilu movement, proposed the name "Rehovot ...

, Israel) was a scientist and Soviet

refusenik Refusenik (, ; alternatively spelled refusnik) was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authorities of the Soviet Union and oth ...

Biography

Early years

He was born to a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish family in

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 ...

(now

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

). His father was a pharmacist and had a drugstore. He graduated from a seven-year school in Vinnitsa at age 12 instead of 14, skipping two grades. His school performance was mediocre, as Lerner was more interested in science outside the school program. At the age of 13 he entered the electromechanical college, where he mastered the profession of technician-engineer.

Scientific career

Lerner graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute in 1938, and received a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1940. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he worked on installing and debugging US equipment at a steel mill in Siberia while it was under construction. In 1943, when the construction was finished, Lerner went back to Moscow, where he served as the chief engineer of the Central Autonomous Laboratory at the Soviet Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Lerner became a member of the Soviet scientific and technological elite. He was a leading practitioner of

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

. It is a branch of science that deals with human control systems like the brain and nervous systems where they interconnect with complex electronic systems. His mathematical equations were used in forecasting supply and demand for vital materials like steel, or allocating scarce resources.

Becoming refusenik

He was the first prominent Soviet scientist to seek to emigrate to Israel. His request was denied, and resulted in the sudden loss of his positions and privileges. In 1977, a letter was published in the Soviet newspaper '' Izvestiya'' calling Lerner "the leader of an espionage nest." His closest associates in the refusenik movement —

Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky (; born 20 January 1948) is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018, and currently serves as ...

, Vladimir Slepak and Ida Nudel — were arrested. He was finally granted an exit permit and emigrated to Israel on 27 January 1988, after 16 years of harassment by the KGB, together with his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Lerner accepted an appointment in the mathematics department at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

where he pursued a number of projects, including the development of an

artificial heart An artificial heart is a artificial organ, device that replaces the human heart, heart. Artificial hearts are typically used as a bridge to heart transplantation, but ongoing research aims to develop a device that could permanently replace the ...

and the construction of a mathematical model to predict the behavior of developed societies. He died in 2004 in

at the age of 90.

Famous followers

Professor Vladimir Burkov, the head of Laboratory of Active Systems in V.A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences of RAS, Moscow, Russia. Professor Vladimir Vapnik, pioneer in

statistical learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

theory.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lerner, Alexander 1913 births 2004 deaths Cyberneticists People from Vinnytsia 20th-century Ukrainian Jews Soviet people accused of spying for the West Refuseniks Soviet electrical engineers Ukrainian electrical engineers Ukrainian Zionists