Alexei Nikolayevich Krylov

Alexei Krylov

Aleksey Krylov ( Russian Алексей Николаевич Крылов * 3 ^{. Jul} / 15. August  1863 ^greg. In Wisjaga , Government Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk Oblast ); † 26. October 1945 in Leningrad , Soviet Union ) was a Russian naval engineer and mathematician .

He was the son of an artillery officer, attended the Higher Naval School in Saint Petersburg from 1878 to 1894 and was then in the compass department of the Hydrographic Office with Ivan Petrovich de Collong, where he worked on the magnetic deviation of compasses. In 1888 he went to the Shipbuilding Institute of the Naval Academy, where he studied mathematics with Alexander Nikolajewitsch Korkin . In 1890 he graduated with honors and began to give lectures on behalf of Korkin. He then remained a professor there for over 50 years. In 1900 he also took over the management of the shipbuilding tests at the experimental tank inaugurated in 1894 (later the Krylow Research Center ). In 1908 he became (with the rank of general) Chief Inspector for Shipbuilding and President of the Committee for Naval Engineering at the Ministry of the Navy, although he did not shy away from conflicts with official bodies. In 1910 he therefore gave up his official position again. After the October Revolution of 1917 he tried to rebuild international contacts in Russian science and was one of the first Russian scientists to travel to London after the 1921 revolution.

In 1898 he received the gold medal of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects for his research on the taxiing and pitching of ships. In 1914 he was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences (1916 as a full member) and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Lomonosov University . From 1927 to 1932 he was director of the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1943 he became a hero of socialist work and received the state prize.

Krylov made important contributions to the hydrodynamics of ships (he also wrote an article about it in the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences ) and in 1904 built a mechanical analog computer to solve the differential equation problems that arise (the first in Russia). He also further developed mathematical methods (solving boundary value problems with Fourier series, convergence of Fourier series, approximate solutions of differential equations, eigenvalue problems and approximation methods for solving the eigenvalue equation in 1931), partly directly based on classical work, e.g. by Johann Albrecht Euler , Carl Friedrich Gauß , Newton, Laplace and Lagrange going back. The Krylow rooms, which form the basis of today's Krylow sub-room procedures , were named after an article he published in 1931 .

In 1915 he published the first Russian translation of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which had several editions in Russia.

Krylov was married. His daughter Anna married the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Pyotr Leonidowitsch Kapiza .

He should not be confused with the Russian mathematicians Nikolai Mitrofanowitsch Krylov and Vladimir J. Krylov.

The Krylow Peninsula in Antarctica has been named in his honor since 1958 .

Fonts

• Lectures on approximate calculations, 1911, 3rd edition 1935
• About some differential equations of mathematical physics which have applications to technical problems, 1913, 2nd edition 1932
• Vibration of Ships, 1936
• Thoughts and materials for teaching mechanics 1943
• Collected Works, 1948

literature

• Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium , Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 105 and p. 1019f (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Alexei Nikolajewitsch Krylow. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .