Blagowest Sendow

Blagowest Sendow

Blagowest Christoph Sendow (other transcription: Blagovest Christov Sendov) ( Bulgarian Благовест Христов Сендов ; born February 8, 1932 in Asenovgrad , Bulgaria ; † January 19, 2020 ) was a Bulgarian mathematician , university professor , diplomat and politician .

Childhood and school days

Sendow was the son of the businessman Christoph Sendow and the graduate of the American College in Samokow Maruschka Sendowa. Sendow had three brothers and two sisters. He was the second oldest child.

Sendow learned to count at the age of four and had a firm grasp of the nature of numbers. This world view of numbers was deeply shaken when he got to know negative numbers in fourth grade at school. He felt this to be a personal drama and could not stand it for a long time. From an early age Sendow had a strong urge in all areas to understand things in their deep essence and their function.

Sendow finished school in Asenovgrad in 1949 with the Abitur with distinction.

Education

First, Sendow was denied access to studies in Bulgaria, which had become communist in the meantime, because of his bourgeois origin. He moved to Sofia and took on various jobs there, always aiming to gain admission to study. In 1952 he finally managed to get a place in mathematics at the University of Sofia . Here his extraordinary mathematical talent was immediately recognized and he was accepted into Professor Tagamlitzki's student group. As a student, he wrote his first scientific work, which was suggested by Sergei Natanowitsch Bernstein for publication in the reports of the Soviet Academy of Sciences . In 1956 he graduated with honors, but was unable to get an assistant position at the university for political reasons and had to work as a teacher.

Return to the university

The mathematics professors with whom Sendow had studied stood up for him in a letter to the education minister. As a result, he got a position as a scientific assistant in the Department of Higher Algebra with Nikola Obreschkow in 1958 .

Sendow received his doctorate in 1964 with a thesis on the subject of Approximation of functions with algebraic polynomials in respect to a metric of the Hausdorff type . In 1967 he completed his habilitation.

In 1963 he became associate professor and in 1968 professor. From 1970 to 1973 he was dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and from 1973 to 1979 rector of the University of Sofia.

Academy of Science

From 1967 to 1970 Sendow was head of the department for numerical mathematics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences . From 1967 to 1970 he was Deputy Director of the Institute for Mathematics and the Computer Center. From 1982 to 1988 he held the post of Vice President and Senior Scientific Secretary and finally became President of the Academy from 1988 to 1991.

From 1974 Sendow was a corresponding member and from 1981 a member of the Academy of Sciences.

Scientific subjects

One focus of Sendowschen work were the Hausdorff - approximation . Sendow worked on the Erdös conjecture and contributed significantly to its solution. He gained international recognition with his work on the Whitney constant. As a student in 1958, he set up Sendow's Hypothesis , which many mathematicians are still trying to prove today. In biology, Sendow and Rumen Tsanev set up a mathematical model for eukaryotic cells that depicts the mechanisms of cell differentiation and carcinogenesis.

IT, computers

Sendov was instrumental in the development of Bulgarian computer science. From 1959 to 1962 he gave lectures on numerical methods, electronic computing and programming. Together with Vasil Popov he wrote the first textbooks on numerical methods for students - Part I (1976) and Part II (1978). He created the first student seminar in computer mathematics in 1961, after which the first students continued their education at Moscow State University, specializing in computer mathematics and cybernetics. From 1962 to 1989 he headed the General Seminar of Computer Mathematics, which played an important role in the development of Bulgarian computer science.

In 1961 Sendow became the head of the newly established Bulgarian data center and in 1963 introduced the first Bulgarian computer Vitosha . From 1963 he headed the department for numerical methods in the Ministry of Education and Science. He also set up a separate computer mathematics department, which he also headed. From 1971 he also headed the department for mathematical modeling. He established computer science as a school subject and was involved in teacher training in this area. Sendow contributed to the spread of computers and information technology through appearances on radio and television and popular science books.

Political activity

From 1986 to 1988 Sendow was chairman of the science committee in the Council of Ministers. From 1986 to 2003 he was a member of parliament. In 1992 Sendow took part as an independent candidate in the presidential election in Bulgaria and took 4th place with 2.24%. From 1995 to 1997 Sendov was chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria and from 1997 to 2003 its deputy chairman. From 2002 to 2009 he was the Bulgarian ambassador to Japan .

Memberships, offices and honorary offices

Sendow has been President and Lifelong Honorary President of the International Association of Universities since 1985 . From 1984 to 1992 he was chairman and honorary chairman of the International Federation for Information Processing . From 1986 to 1990 he was a member of the executive office of the General Committee of the International Science Council . From 1980 to 1990 he was deputy chairman of the World Peace Council . Sendow was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine , the American Mathematical Society, and the British Computer Society .

family

Sendow was married twice. He had three children.

Controversy: Bulgarian royal family - rescued Bulgarian Jews

Sendow was not a member of the communist party, but was close to the communist dictator Todor Zhivkov . He was elected to his post as chairman or vice-chairman of the National Assembly with the support of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the successor party to the Communists .

In 2000 Sendow signed a letter to the President of Israel along with four members of the BSP. In the letter, these politicians demanded that the pictures of members of the Bulgarian royal family be removed from a memorial for the rescued Bulgarian Jews who were threatened by deportation by Nazi Germany . The background to this is the controversy that continues to this day about whose merit it is to save the Bulgarian Jews. The communists tried and are trying to claim this salvation for themselves.

The fact is that Tsar Boris III. In 1943, together with his parliamentary president Dimitar Peschew and Archbishop Stefan von Sofia prevented the deportation of 48,000 Bulgarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp . Another undisputed fact is that Boris III. and his wife Queen Johanna, together with the Italian ambassador in Sofia, issued Italian passports and transit visas for Palestine, thus helping thousands of foreign Jews living in Bulgaria and Jews from Slovakia to escape the Germans.

→ Main article : Saving the Bulgarian Jews

On the basis of this letter, Sendow was temporarily removed from office by votes of the conservative party Sajus na Demokratitschnite Sili .

Publications

• Hausdorff Approximations (Mathematics and its Applications, Volume 50) , Springer, 2013, ISBN 978-9401067874
• The Averaged Moduli of Smoothness: Applications in Numerical Methods and Approximation (Pure & Applied Mathematics) , John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1989, ISBN 978-0471919520
• Children in the Information Age: Opportunities for Creativity, Innovation, and New Activities: Opportunities for Creativity, Innovation and New Activities - Selected International Conference Papers , Pergamon Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0080364643

As editor

• Recent Advances in Numerical Methods and Applications II - Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference, Sofia, Bulgaria 19-23 August 1998 , WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUB CO INC, 1999, ISBN 978-9810238278
• Monte Carlo Methods and Parallel Algorithms - International Youth Workshop: Proceedings , WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUB CO INC, 1991, ISBN 978-9810202934

Web links

• Literature by and about Blagowest Sendow in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Blagowest Sendow in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ^ Literature by and about Blagowest Sendow in the catalog of the German National Library gnd information. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Почина Академик Благовест Сендов - Световно Известен Математик at bulgarica.com. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Благовест Сендов at mmib.math.bas.bg (Bulgarian). Retrieved February 28, 2020.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Благовест Сендов at omda.bg (Bulgarian). Retrieved February 28, 2020.
5. ↑ Blagovest Hristov Sendov at genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
6. ↑ Sendow on his 80th birthday at mmib.math.bas.bg. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
7. ↑ Joseph Benatov: Debating the fate of Bulgarian Jews during World War II in John Paul Himka, Beata Michlic : Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe , Journal of Baltic Studies 39, no 4, of 2008. , ISBN 978-0-8032-2544-2 , online at books.google.de. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
8. ↑ Spas T. Raikin: Rebel with a Just Cause: A Political Journey Against the Winds of the 20th Century , Vol. II, Pensoft, Sofia-Moscow, 2001, ISBN 954-642-130-8 , p. 130, online at books.google.de. Retrieved February 28, 2020.