Gregory Abelevich Freiman (; 3 July 1926 – 19 September 2024) was a Russian and Israeli mathematician known for his work in

additive number theory Additive number theory is the subfield of number theory concerning the study of subsets of integers and their behavior under addition. More abstractly, the field of additive number theory includes the study of abelian groups and commutative semigro ...

, in particular, for proving

Freiman's theorem In additive combinatorics, a discipline within mathematics, Freiman's theorem is a central result which indicates the approximate structure of sets whose sumset is small. It roughly states that if , A+A, /, A, is small, then A can be contained in ...

. He was a Professor Emeritus in

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

Biography

Freiman was born in

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

on 3 July 1926. He graduated from

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 1949, and obtained his

Candidate of Sciences A Candidate of Sciences is a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD-equivalent academic research degree in all the post-Soviet countries with the exception of Ukraine, and until the 1990s it was also awarded in Central and Eastern European countries. It is ...

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 ...

in 1956. From 1956 he worked in

Elabuga Yelabuga (also spelled ''Elabuga''; ; ) is a town in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, located on the right bank of the Kama River and east from Kazan. Population: The evolution of name The name of the city of Yelabuga comes from the T ...

, and in 1965 he defended his

Doctor of Sciences A Doctor of Sciences, abbreviated д-р наук or д. н.; ; ; ; is a higher doctoral degree in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and many Commonwealth of Independent States countries. One of the prerequisites of receiving a Doctor of Sciences ...

degree under the joint supervision of Alexander Gelfond, Alexey G. Postnikov, and

Alexander Buchstab Aleksandr Adol'fovich Buchstab (October 4, 1905 – February 27, 1990;. , variously transliterated as Bukhstab, Buhštab, or Bukhshtab) was a Soviet mathematician who worked in number theory and was "known for his work in sieve methods". He is th ...

. From 1967 he worked in

Vladimir Vladimir (, , pre-1918 orthography: ) is a masculine given name of Slavic origin, widespread throughout all Slavic nations in different forms and spellings. The earliest record of a person with the name is Vladimir of Bulgaria (). Etymology ...

, and later in Kalinin (now

Tver Tver (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is situated at the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers. Tver is located northwest of Moscow. Population: The city is ...

). In the 1970s and early 1980s Freiman participated in the

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 ...

movement. His

samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

essay ''It seems I am a Jew'', described the discrimination against Jewish mathematicians in the Soviet Union. It was published in the US in 1980. Later, Freiman was driven out of Russia for his different views. He chose Israel as his new home country, leaving his son, daughter and wife. In Israel he became professor in Tel Aviv University and remarried. Freiman died on 19 September 2024, at the age of 98.

Selected publications

* * with Boris M. Schein: * * with Boris L. Granovsky: *

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freiman, Gregory 1926 births 2024 deaths Russian Jews Israeli people of Russian-Jewish descent Israeli Jews Israeli mathematicians Number theorists Academic staff of Tel Aviv University Additive combinatorialists