Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, also written Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand (Yiddish: ישראל געלפֿאַנד, Russian: Израиль Моисеевич Гельфанд, (2 September [O.S. 20 August] 1913—5 October 2009)) was a Soviet mathematician who made major contributions to many branches of mathematics, including group theory, representation theory and linear algebra. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Order of Lenin and the Wolf Prize, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a lifelong academic, serving decades as a professor at Moscow State University and, after immigrating to the United States shortly before his 76th birthday, at the Busch Campus of New Jersey's Rutgers University.

Early years

A native of Kherson gubernia of the Russian Empire, Israel Gelfand was born into a Jewish family in the small town of Okny (subsequently, Krasniye Okny). According to his own account, Gelfand was expelled from high school because his father had been a mill owner. Bypassing both high school and college, he proceeded to postgraduate study at Moscow State University, where his advisor was the preeminent mathematician Andrei Kolmogorov. He nevertheless managed to attend lectures at the University and began postgraduate study at the age of 19.[1]

Career evaluation

In an October 2003 article in The New York Times, written on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Gelfand is described as a scholar who is considered "among the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century",[2] having exerted a tremendous influence on the field both through his own works and those of his students. Having educated and inspired generations of students through his legendary seminar at Moscow State University, he left the Soviet Union in 1989 and, after a year at Harvard and MIT, became Distinguished Visiting Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers and also worked as a Chief Science Officer of Scientific Research Institute of System Development (NIISI RAN).[3] His legacy continues in the mathematicians who were his students, such as Endre Szemerédi, Alexandre Kirillov, Joseph Bernstein as well as his own son, Sergei Gelfand.

Death and family

Israel Gelfand died at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital near his home in Highland Park, New Jersey. He was less than five weeks past his 96th birthday. His death was first reported on the blog of his former collaborator Andrei Zelevinsky[4] and confirmed a few hours later by an obituary in the Russian online newspaper Polit.ru.[5] He was married to Zorya Shapiro, and their two sons, Sergei and Vladimir both live in the United States. A third son, Aleksandr, died of leukemia. Following a divorce, Gelfand and his second wife, Tatiana, became the parents of a daughter, Tatiana. The family, all in the U.S., also includes four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.[6] The memories about I.Gelfand are collected at the special site[7] handled by his family.

Work

Israel Gelfand is known for many developments including:

* the Gelfand representation in Banach algebra theory;
* the Gelfand–Mazur theorem in Banach algebra theory;
* the Gelfand–Naimark theorem;
* the Gelfand–Naimark–Segal construction;
* the Gelfand–Pettis integral;
* the representation theory of the complex classical Lie groups;
* contributions to the theory of Verma modules in the representation theory of semisimple Lie algebras (with I.N. Bernstein and S.I. Gelfand);
* contributions to distribution theory and measures on infinite-dimensional spaces;[8]
* the first observation of the connection of automorphic forms with representations (with Sergei Fomin);
* conjectures about the index theorem;
* Ordinary differential equations (Gelfand–Levitan theory);
* work on calculus of variations and soliton theory (Gelfand–Dikii equations);
* contributions to the philosophy of cusp forms;
* Gelfand–Fuks cohomology of foliations;
* Gelfand–Kirillov dimension;
* integral geometry;
* combinatorial definition of the Pontryagin class;
* Coxeter functors;
* generalised hypergeometric series;
* Gelfand - Tsetlin patterns;
* and many other results, particularly in the representation theory for the classical groups.

Influence outside of mathematics

The Gelfand–Tsetlin basis (also in the common spelling Zetlin) is a widely-used tool in theoretical physics and the result of Gelfand's work on the representation theory of the unitary group and Lie groups in general.

For a long time he took an interest in cell biology.

He worked extensively in mathematics education, particularly with correspondence education. In 1994, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship for this work.

Honors and awards

Gelfand held several honorary degrees and was awarded the Order of Lenin three times for his research. In 1977 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. He won the Wolf Prize in 1978, Kyoto Prize in 1989 and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1994. He held the presidency of the Moscow Mathematical Society between 1968 and 1970, and was elected a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Irish Academy, the American Mathematical Society and the London Mathematical Society.

See also

* Gelfand pair
* Gelfand triple

References

Notes

1. ^ The Daily Telegraph 27 Oct 09
2. ^ Kochman, Marilyn. "In Person: An Equation for Success", The New York Times (October 5, 2003)
3. ^ (Russian) Israel Gelfand at NIISI web-site
4. ^ (Russian) "Скончался И.М. Гельфанд" ("I.M. Gelfand has died"), accessed 2009-10-06
5. ^ "5 октября ушел из жизни выдающийся математик Израиль Моисеевич Гельфанд. "Эпоха Гельфанда ушла, но она продолжится в существующих поколениях" {"Renowned Mathematician Israil Moiseyevich Gelfand Departed on October 5. Gelfand's era has gone, but it shall continue in succeeding generations"}
6. ^ Chang, Kenneth. "Israel Gelfand, Math Giant, Dies at 96", The New York Times (October 7, 2009)
7. ^ http://israelmgelfand.com/ site dedicated to Israel M. Gelfand
8. ^ Gel'fand, I.M.; n.Ya.Vilenkin (1964). Generalized Functions. Academic Press. pp. 375. ISBN 0-12-279504-0.

Sources

* Chang, Kenneth. "Israel Gelfand, Math Giant, Dies at 96", The New York Times (October 7, 2009)
* "Leading mathematician Israel Gelfand dies in N.J." USA Today (October 9, 2009)
* "Israel Gelfand | Top mathematician, 96". The Philadelphia Inquirer (October 10, 2009)
* "Israel Gelfand" The Daily Telegraph (October 27, 2009)

External links

* Israel Gelfand - Daily Telegraph obituary
* Israel Gelfand - Guardian obituary
* Israel Gelfand at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
* O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Gelfand, Israil", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gelfand.html .
* Web page at Rutgers
* List of publications.
* Steele Prize citation.