Mathematical Events of the Twentieth Century

During the 20th century, Russia and the Soviet Union were world leaders in mathematics. This collection of essays celebrates outstanding events and people in the development of twentieth century mathematics, representing a wide variety of specialties in which Russian and Soviet mathematicians played a considerable role. The articles are written in an informal style, covering a range of topics from mathematical philosophy to the description of the development of ideas. Many give a unique account of personal meetings with famous representatives of twentieth century mathematics who exerted great influence in its development.

D.V.Anosov: Dynamical Systems in the 1960s: The Hyperbolic Revolution.- V.I.Arnold: From Hilbert's Superposition Problem to Dynamical Systems.- A.A.Bolibruch: Inverse Monodromy Problems of the Analytic Theory of Differential Equations.- L.D.Faddeev: What Modern Mathematical Physics is Supposed to be.- R.V.Gamkrelidze: Discovery of the Maximum Principle.- Yu.S.Il'yashenko: The Qualitative Theory of Diferential Equations in the Plane.- P.S.Krasnoshchekov: Computerization... Let's be Careful.- V.A.Marchenko: The Generalized Shift, Transformation Operators, and Inverse Problems.- V.P.Maslov: Mathematics and the Trajectories of Typhoons.- Yu.V.Matiyasevich: Hilbert's Tenth Problem: Diophantine Equations in the Twentieth Century.- V.D.Milman: Observations on the Movement of People and Ideas in Twentieth-Century Mathematics.- E.F.Mishchenko: About Aleksandrov, Pontryagin and Their Scientific Schools.- Yu.V.Nesterenko: Hilbert's Seventh Problem.- S.M.Nikol'skii: The Great Kolmogorov.- A.N.Parshin: Numbers as Functions: The Development of an Idea in the Moscow School of Algebraic Geometry.- A.A.Razborov: The P=NP-Problem: A View from the 1990s.- L.P.Shil'nikov: Homoclinic Trajectories: From Poincaré to the Present.- A.N.Shiryaev: From 'Disorder' to Nonlinear Filtering and Martingale Theory.- Ya.G.Sinai: How Mathematicians and Physicists Found Each Other in the Theory of Dynamical Systems and in Statistical Mechanics.- V.M.Tikhomirov: Approximation Theory in the Twentieth Century.- A.M.Vershik: The Life and Fate of Functional Analysis in the Twentieth Century.- A.G.Vitushkin: Half a Century as one day.- V.S.Vladimirov: Nikolai Nikolaevich Bogolyubov - Mathematician by the Grace of God.- V.I.Yudovich: Global Solvability Versus Collapse in the Dynamics of an Incompressible Fluid.- Name Index

"... This is, obviously, a very cursory look at a collection with a great deal of information and many fascinating features, mathematical and nonmathematical, that often make one wish for more. ..."

Richard Beals, SIAM Review Vol. 48, Issue 3, p. 596-600, 2006