Soviet mathematician (1913–2009)
Israel Moiseevich Gelfand , also written Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand , or Izrail M. Gelfand (
Yiddish : ישראל געלפֿאַנד ,
Russian : Изра́иль Моисе́евич Гельфа́нд ,
Ukrainian : Ізраїль Мойсейович Гельфанд ; 2 September [
O.S. 20 August] 1913 – 5 October 2009) was a prominent
Soviet -American
mathematician . He made significant contributions to many branches of mathematics, including
group theory ,
representation theory and
functional analysis . The recipient of many awards, including the
Order of Lenin and the first
Wolf Prize , he was a Foreign
Fellow of the Royal Society and professor at
Moscow State University and, after immigrating to the United States shortly before his 76th birthday, at
Rutgers University . Gelfand is also a
1994 MacArthur Fellow .
His legacy continues through his students, who include
Endre Szemerédi ,
Alexandre Kirillov ,
Edward Frenkel ,
[1]
Joseph Bernstein ,
David Kazhdan , as well as his own son, Sergei Gelfand.
Early years
A native of
Kherson Governorate ,
Russian Empire (now,
Odesa Oblast ,
Ukraine ), Gelfand was born into a
Jewish family in the small southern
Ukrainian town of
Okny . According to his own account, Gelfand was expelled from high school under the
Soviets because his father had been a mill owner. Bypassing both high school and college, he proceeded to postgraduate study at the age of 19 at
Moscow State University , where his advisor was the preeminent mathematician
Andrei Kolmogorov .
[2] He received his PhD in 1935.
[3]
Gelfand immigrated to the
United States in 1989.
[4]
Work
Gelfand is known for many developments including:
Gelfand ran a seminar at
Moscow State University from 1943
[1] until May 1989 (when it continued at
Rutgers University ), which covered a wide range of topics and was an important school for many mathematicians.
[6]
[7]
[8]
Influence outside mathematics
The
Gelfand–Tsetlin (also spelled Zetlin) basis 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.
Gelfand also published works on biology and medicine.
[9] For a long time he took an interest in
cell biology and organized a research seminar on the subject.
[10]
[11]
He worked extensively in mathematics education, particularly with correspondence education. In 1994, he was awarded a
MacArthur Fellowship for this work.
Personal life
Gelfand was married to
Zorya Shapiro , and their two sons, Sergei and Vladimir both live in the United States. The third son, Aleksandr, died of
leukemia . Following the divorce from his first wife, Gelfand married his second wife, Tatiana; together they had a daughter, Tatiana. The family also includes four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
[12]
[13] Memories about I. Gelfand are collected at a dedicated website handled by his family.
[14]
Gelfand was an advocate of
animal rights .
[15] He became a
vegetarian in 1994 and
vegan in 2000.
[15]
[16]
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 .
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",
[17] having exerted a tremendous influence on the field both through his own works and those of his students.
Death
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
[18] and confirmed a few hours later by an obituary in the Russian online newspaper Polit.ru .
[19]
Publications
Gelfand, I. M. (1998),
Lectures on linear algebra , Courier Dover Publications,
ISBN
978-0-486-66082-0
Gelfand, I. M.; Fomin, Sergei V. (1963), Silverman, Richard A. (ed.),
Calculus of variations , Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc.,
ISBN
978-0-486-41448-5 ,
MR
0160139
Gelfand, I.; Raikov, D.; Shilov, G. (1964) [1960],
Commutative normed rings , Translated from the Russian, with a supplementary chapter, New York: Chelsea Publishing Co.,
ISBN
978-0-8218-2022-3 ,
MR
0205105
Gel'fand, I. M.; Shilov, G. E. (1964) [1958],
Generalized functions. Vol. I: Properties and operations , Translated by Eugene Saletan, Boston, MA:
Academic Press ,
ISBN
978-0-12-279501-5 ,
MR
0166596
[20]
Gelfand, I. M.; Shilov, G. E. (1968) [1958],
Generalized functions. Vol. 2. Spaces of fundamental and generalized functions , Translated from the Russian by Morris D. Friedman, Amiel Feinstein and Christian P. Peltzer, Boston, MA:
Academic Press ,
ISBN
978-0-12-279502-2 ,
MR
0230128
[20]
Gelfand, I. M.; Shilov, G. E. (1967) [1958], Generalized functions. Vol. 3: Theory of differential equations , Translated from the Russian by Meinhard E. Mayer, Boston, MA:
Academic Press ,
MR
0217416
[20]
Gelfand, I. M.; Vilenkin, N. Ya. (1964) [1961],
Generalized functions. Vol. 4: Applications of harmonic analysis , Translated by Amiel Feinstein, Boston, MA:
Academic Press ,
ISBN
978-0-12-279504-6 ,
MR
0173945
[20]
Gelfand, I. M.; Graev, M. I.; Vilenkin, N. Ya. (1966) [1962], Generalized functions. Vol. 5: Integral geometry and representation theory , Translated from the Russian by Eugene Saletan, Boston, MA:
Academic Press ,
ISBN
978-0-12-279505-3 ,
MR
0207913
[20]
Gelfand, I. M.; Graev, M. I.; Pyatetskii-Shapiro, I. I. (1969),
Representation theory and automorphic functions , Translated from the Russian by K. A. Hirsch, Philadelphia, Pa.: W. B. Saunders Co.,
ISBN
978-0-12-279506-0 ,
MR
0233772
Gelfand, Izrail M. (1987), Gindikin, S. G.; Guillemin, V. W.; Kirillov, A. A.; Kostant, Bertram;
Sternberg, Shlomo (eds.),
Collected papers. Vol. I , Berlin, New York:
Springer-Verlag ,
ISBN
978-3-540-13619-4 ,
MR
0929821
Gelfand, Izrail M. (1988), Gindikin, S. G.; Guillemin, V. W.; Kirillov, A. A.; Kostant, Bertram;
Sternberg, Shlomo (eds.),
Collected papers. Vol. II , Berlin, New York:
Springer-Verlag ,
ISBN
978-3-540-19035-6 ,
MR
0929821
Gelfand, I. M.; Shen, A. (1993),
Algebra , Boston: Birkhäuser,
ISBN
978-0-8176-3677-7
Gelfand, Izrail M. (1989), Gindikin, S. G.; Guillemin, V. W.; Kirillov, A. A.; Kostant, Bertram;
Sternberg, Shlomo (eds.),
Collected papers. Vol. III , Berlin, New York:
Springer-Verlag ,
ISBN
978-3-540-19399-9 ,
MR
0997939
Gelfand, I. M.; Kapranov, M.M.; Zelevinsky, A.V. (1994), Discriminants, resultants, and multidimensional determinants , Boston: Birkhäuser,
ISBN
978-0-8176-3660-9
[21]
[22]
Gelfand, I. M.; Saul, M. (2001),
Trigonometry , Boston: Birkhäuser,
doi :
10.1007/978-1-4612-0149-6 ,
ISBN
978-0-8176-3914-3
Gelfand, I. M.; Gindikin, S. G.; Graev, M. I. (2003), Selected topics in integral geometry , Translations of Mathematical Monographs, vol. 220, Providence, R.I.:
American Mathematical Society ,
ISBN
978-0-8218-2932-5 ,
MR
2000133
Borovik, Alexandre V.; Gelfand, I. M.; White, Neil (2003),
Coxeter matroids , Progress in Mathematics, vol. 216, Boston, MA: Birkhäuser Boston,
ISBN
978-0-8176-3764-4 ,
MR
1989953
Generalized Functions Volumes, 1-6 , American Math Society, (2015)
See also
References
Citations
^
Edward Frenkel (2013).
"preface" .
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality . Basic Books.
ISBN
978-0465050741 . One of my teachers, the great Israel Gelfand
^
"Science Obituaries: Israel Gelfand" . The Telegraph . London. 26 October 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2013 .
^
"Israel Moiseevich Gelfand" . The Mathematics Genealogy Project . Retrieved 4 October 2022 .
^
"Israel Gelfand, Math Giant, Dies at 96" . New York Times . 7 October 2009. Retrieved 12 November 2022 .
^ Gel'fand, I.M.; N.Ya.Vilenkin (1964),
Generalized Functions , Academic Press, p. 375,
ISBN
0-12-279504-0
^ M.I. Vishik, G.E. Shilov,
I.M. Gel'fand Seminar on Functional Analysis and Mathematical Physics in Moscow State University (in Russian) , Uspekhi Mat. Nauk, 13:2(80) (1958), 253-263.
^
Конспекты М.А. Шубина с семинаров И.М. Гельфанда
^ Александр Бейлинсон,
И. М. Гельфанд и его семинар (I. M. Gelfand and his seminar — a presence)
^
ru:Гельфанд, Израиль Моисеевич
^ V.I. Agol,
Notes about I.M. Gelfand’s Seminar , Russian Journal Developmental Biology , Volume 39 (2008), Number 6, 367-368.
^ L.V. Beloussov,
Short notes about Gelfand’s Seminar , Russian Journal Developmental Biology , Volume 39 (2008), Number 6, 369-370.
^
Chang, Kenneth. "Israel Gelfand, Math Giant, Dies at 96", The New York Times (October 7, 2009)
^ Stewart, Ian (8 November 2009).
"Israel Gelfand obituary" . The Guardian . London.
^
http://israelmgelfand.com/ site dedicated to Israel M. Gelfand
^
a
b
"Interview with Israel Gelfand and Tatiana V. Gelfand" . vita.org.ru. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
^
"Israel Gelfand" . telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
^
Kochman, Marilyn. "In Person: An Equation for Success", The New York Times (October 5, 2003)
^ (in Russian)
"Скончался И.М. Гельфанд" ("I.M. Gelfand has died"), accessed 2009-10-06
^
"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"}
^
a
b
c
d
e
Guillemin, Victor (1980).
"Review: Generalized functions , by I. M. Gel'fand and G. E. Shilov" . Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) . 3 (1, Part 1): 758–762.
doi :
10.1090/s0273-0979-1980-14813-2 .
^ Catanese, Fabrizio (2000).
"Review: Discriminants, resultants, and multidimensional determinants , by I. M. Gelfand, M. M. Kapranov, and A. V. Zelevinsky" . Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) . 37 (2): 183–198.
doi :
10.1090/s0273-0979-99-00858-7 .
^ Roberts, David P. (2009).
"Review: Discriminants, Resultants, and Multidimensional Determinants, by I. M. Gelfand, M. M. Kapranov, and A. V. Zelevinsky" . Mathematical Association of America . Retrieved 1 July 2020 .
^
Rosenfeld (Розенфельд), Boris Abramowitsch (Борис Абрамович) [in German] (2003).
"Math.ru" Об Исааке Моисеевиче Ягломе [About Isaac Moiseevich Yaglom]. Мат. просвещение (Mat. enlightenment) (in Russian): 25–28.
Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2022 – via math.ru. […] во время антисемитской кампании, известной как «борьба с космополитизмом», был уволен вместе с И.М. Гельфандом и И. С. Градштейном […] [during the antisemitic campaign known as the "
fight against cosmopolitanism ", he was fired along with I. M. Gelfand and
I. S. Gradstein .]
Sources
External links
Israel Moiseevich Gelfand , dedicated site, maintained by Tatiana V. Gelfand and Tatiana I. Gelfand
Israel Gelfand - Daily Telegraph obituary
Israel Gelfand - Guardian obituary
Israel Gelfand at the
Mathematics Genealogy Project
O'Connor, John J.;
Robertson, Edmund F. ,
"Israel Gelfand" ,
MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive ,
University of St Andrews
Web page at Rutgers
List of publications .
Steele Prize citation .
The unity of mathematics – In honor of the ninetieth birthday of I. M. Gelfand
Interview: "A talk with professor I. M. Gelfand.", recorded by V. Retakh and A. Sosinsky, Kvant (1989), no. 1, 3–12 (in Russian). English translation in: Quantum (1991), no. 1, 20–26. (
Link )
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