Pafnuti Lvovich Chebyshev

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Pafnuti L. Chebyshev
Mechanics of the Chebyshev Mechanism

Pafnuty Chebyshev ( Russian Пафнутий Львович Чебышёв ., Scientific transliteration Pafnutij L'vovič Chebyshev * 4; jul. / 16th May  1821 greg. In Okatowo in circles Borovsk (now in the Kaluga oblast ), † November 26 jul. / December 8,  1894 greg. In Saint Petersburg ) was a Russian mathematician . Together with Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Chebyshev is considered the most important Russian mathematician of the 19th century.

His name is written in Russian Пафнутий Львович Чебышёв , which according to today's transcription becomes Pafnuti Lwowitsch Chebyshev (emphasis on the last syllable); scientific. transliteration Pafnutij L'vovič Chebyshev , formerly (incorrectly, as on the first syllable stressed) as Chebyshev or Chebyshev or Chebyshev or Chebyshev and especially in English as Chebyshev transcribed . Most of his works are written or translated in French. And his name is transcribed in French: Tchebychef (see below: Writings, oeuvres ).

Life

Chebyshev came from the family of the landowner Lev Pavlovich Chebyshev. He was one of nine children, and in 1832 he moved with the family to Moscow, where he received lessons from one of the best private math teachers, PN Pogorelski.

He studied from 1837 at the Lomonossow University with Nikolai Dmitrijewitsch Braschman (with whom he also heard about probability theory) and Nikolai Zernow. In 1846 he defended his master's thesis, in 1847 he submitted his dissertation in Saint Petersburg ( pro venia legendi ), whereupon he got a position at the university. He was promoted in St. Petersburg by Viktor Jakowlewitsch Bunjakowski , with whom he published the number theory work of Leonhard Euler in 1849 . Finally, in 1849, he defended his famous doctoral dissertation (habilitation thesis) “Theory of Congruences”, which was published as a book and translated into several languages. She received an Academy Award.

In 1850 he became an associate professor in St. Petersburg, in 1860 a full professor. In St. Petersburg he gave lectures on algebra , analysis, number theory and probability theory. During his teaching activity in Saint Petersburg, between 1852 and 1858, Chebyshev also taught "Practical Mechanics" at the Alexander Lyceum .

Chebyshev spoke French very well and mostly wrote his mathematical works in French first. He also had early contact with French and foreign mathematicians and later regularly visited the mathematical centers in Western Europe.

In 1882 he retired, but continued to work at the St. Petersburg Academy and maintained an open house for his many former students once a week. In 1894 he died of heart failure.

He was never married. His younger brother Vladimir Lvovich Chebyshev was a general and professor at the St. Petersburg Artillery Academy and financed the first edition of Chebyshev's Collected Works.

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Chebyshev worked in the fields of interpolation , approximation , function theory , probability theory , number theory (especially prime number theory), mechanics and ballistics (which he was involved in on a committee of the academy).

Named after him are the Chebyshev polynomials (which first appear in his 1854 book on mechanisms), the Chebyshev inequality , the Chebyshev distance , the Chebyshev filter , Chebyshev's theorem , Chebyshev's weak law of large numbers , the theorem von Bertrand- Tschebyschow , as well as the Chebyshev sum inequality , the Chebyshev iteration and the Chebyshev function . Furthermore, the maximum norm (especially in approximation theory ) is also called the Chebyshev norm .

His master's dissertation from 1846 dealt with an attempt at the elementary analysis of probability theory. The title of his dissertation (1847, pro venia legendi ) was On Integration Using Logarithms, in which he discussed the elementary methods of integration; his doctoral dissertation (habilitation thesis) Theory of Congruences dealt with aspects of number theory.

Chebyshev also dealt intensively with mechanical inventions, especially joint mechanisms. Some of his models are in the Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the Paris Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers . There is also a copy of a calculating machine built by him in the 1870s (another copy is in the History Museum in Moscow). He described his adding machine in a short article in 1882. He also developed the lambda mechanism , which he first publicly demonstrated at the Paris World's Fair in 1878 as The Plantigrade Machine . In 1893, several of its mechanisms were exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago .

Chebyshev wrote his mathematical works mostly in French at first. He published in Joseph Liouville's magazine as early as 1843 .

He is the founder of the St. Petersburg Mathematical School. His students include Andrei Andrejewitsch Markow , Alexander Michailowitsch Lyapunow , Alexander Nikolajewitsch Korkin , Yegor Ivanovich Solotarev , Dmitri Alexandrowitsch Grawe , Georgi Feodosjewitsch Voronoi , Vladimir Andrejewitsch Steklow .

Honors and memberships

He was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1871), foreign member of the Royal Society (1877), member of the Royal Italian and Swedish Academy of Sciences. He had been a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1860 and a full member from 1874, as the first Russian scientist. In 1856 he became an associate member and in 1858 a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1893 he became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society, which had recently been founded . He was a member of the Legion of Honor. In 1849 he received the Demidow Prize . The asteroid (2010) Chebyshev and the lunar crater Chebyshev are named after him.

Fonts

  • Oeuvres, 2 volumes, St. Petersburg 1899, 1907, Commission of the Academy of Sciences, Andrei Markow and N. Sonin (editors), French, Reprint New York, Chelsea 1962, online: Volume 1 , Volume 2
  • Collected works, 5 volumes, Russian, Moscow, Leningrad 1944 to 1951
  • Theory of Congruences, Berlin, Mayer and Müller 1889, online
  • Théorie des mécanismes connus sous le nom de parallélogrammes, St. Petersburg 1854
  • Definite integrals, the theory of finite differences, theory of probability (lectures 1879–1880, recorded by Lyapunow), Berlin, NG-Verlag, 2004

literature

Web links

Commons : Pafnuty Chebyshev  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University: Dzenushko Dainis: Walking mechanisms survey
  2. ↑ Tchebyshev's plantigrade machine
  3. ↑ Chebyshev at the IAU Minor Planet Center (English)
  4. ↑ Chebyshev in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS
personal data
SURNAME Chebyshev, Pafnuti Lvovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Пафнутий Львович Чебышёв (Russian); Pafnutij L'vovič Čebyšëv (scientific transliteration)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH May 16, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Okatowo near Borowsk
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1894
Place of death St. Petersburg