Boris Levitan (7 June 1914 – 4 April 2004) was a

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 ...

who worked on almost periodic functions, Sturm–Liouville operators and

inverse scattering In mathematics and physics, the inverse scattering problem is the problem of determining characteristics of an object, based on data of how it scatters incoming radiation or particles. It is the inverse problem to the direct scattering problem, wh ...

. Levitan was born in

Berdyansk Berdiansk or Berdyansk (, ; , ) is a port city in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, south-eastern Ukraine. It is on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Berdiansk Raion. The ...

(southeastern

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 ...

), and grew up in

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

. He 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 ...

in 1936. In 1938, he submitted his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

thesis "Some Generalization of Almost Periodic Function" under the supervision of

Naum Akhiezer Naum Ilyich Akhiezer (; ; 6 March 1901 – 3 June 1980) was a Soviet and Ukrainian mathematician of Jewish origin, known for his works in approximation theory and the theory of differential and integral operators. He is also known as the autho ...

. He then defended the habilitation thesis "Theory of Generalized Translation Operators". Levitan was drafted into the army at the beginning of

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 ...

in 1941, and served until 1944. From 1944 to 1961, he worked at the

Dzerzhinsky Military Academy Russia has a number of military academies of different specialties. This article primarily lists institutions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation rather than those of the Soviet Armed Forces. Russian institutions designated as an "aca ...

, and from 1961 until about 1992 at

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

. In 1992, he emigrated to the United States. During the last years of his life, he worked for the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

References

Mathematical analysts National University of Kharkiv alumni 1914 births 2004 deaths People from Berdiansk Ukrainian mathematicians Ukrainian Jews Soviet mathematicians Russian emigrants to the United States {{Europe-mathematician-stub