Eugene Borisovich Dynkin (; 11 May 1924 – 14 November 2014) was a USSR and American mathematician.[ He made contributions to the fields of probability and algebra, especially semisimple , , and . The Dynkin diagram, the Dynkin system, and Dynkin's lemma are named after him.
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Biography
Dynkin was born into a family,[
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Moscow University
At the age of 16, in 1940, Dynkin was admitted to Moscow University. He avoided military service in World War II because of his poor eyesight, and received his MS in 1945 and his PhD in 1948. He became an assistant professor at Moscow, but was not awarded a "chair" until 1954 because of his political undesirability. His academic progress was made difficult due to his father's fate, as well as Dynkin's Jewish origin; the special efforts of Andrey Kolmogorov, his PhD supervisor, made it possible for Dynkin to progress through graduate school into a teaching position.[
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USSR Academy of Sciences
In 1968, Dynkin was forced to transfer from the Moscow University to the Central Economic Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.[ He worked there on the theory of economic growth and economic equilibrium.
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Cornell
He remained at the Institute until 1976, when he emigrated to the United States.[In , Dynkin states "I came to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1977".]
Death
Dynkin died at the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, New York, aged 90.[ Cornell Chronicle obit] Dynkin was an atheist.
Mathematical work
Dynkin is considered to be a rare example of a mathematician who made fundamental contributions to two very distinct areas of mathematics: algebra and probability theory.[
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Lie Theory
While Dynkin was a student at Moscow University, he attended Israel Gelfand's seminar on . In 1944, Gelfand asked him to prepare a survey on the structure and classification of semisimple Lie groups, based on the papers by Hermann Weyl and Bartel Leendert van der Waerden. Dynkin found the papers difficult to read, and in an attempt to better understand the results, he invented the notion of a "simple root" in a root system. He represented the pairwise angles between these simple roots in the form of a Dynkin diagram. In this way he obtained a cleaner exposition of the classification of complex semisimple Lie algebras.
Dynkin's 1952 influential paper "Semisimple subalgebras of semisimple Lie algebras", contained large tables and lists, and studied the subalgebras of the exceptional Lie algebras.
Probability theory
Dynkin is considered one of the founders of the modern theory of . The results obtained by Dynkin and other participants of his seminar at Moscow University were summarized in two books. The first of these, "Theory of Markov Processes", was published in 1959, and laid the foundations of the theory.
Dynkin's one-hour talk at the 1962 International Congress of Mathematicians in Stockholm, was delivered by Kolmogorov, since prior to his emigration, Dynkin was never permitted to travel to Western world.
Prizes and awards
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Prize of the Moscow Mathematical Society, 1951
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Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Fellow, 1962
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American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow, 1978
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National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Member, 1985
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American Mathematical Society, Leroy P. Steele Prize for Total Mathematical Work, 1993
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Moscow Mathematical Society, Honorary Member, 1995
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Doctor Honoris Causa of the Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris 6), 1997
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Doctor of Science (honoris causa) of the University of Warwick, 2003.
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Doctor Honoris Causa of the Independent Moscow University (Russia), 2003
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Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, 2012
[ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2012-11-10.]
Publications
See also
- Algebra
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Affine Dynkin diagram
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Coxeter–Dynkin diagram
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Dynkin index
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Dynkin–Specht–Wever Lemma
- Probability
Notes
External links
