|
Chebyshev Paphnutiy Lvovich (04(16).05.1821 - 26.11(08.12).1894)
He received his initial upbringing and education at home: his mother taught him to read, his cousin was taught arithmetic and French. In addition, since childhood, the boy studied music. One of the future hobbyist's children's hobbies was the study of the mechanisms of toys and automatons, and he himself invented and made various mechanical toys. This interest in mechanisms was maintained by Chebyshev in his mature years. In 1832 the family moved to Moscow to continue the education of children. In Moscow, Pavel N. was engaged in mathematics and physics with Paphnutia. Pogorelsky is one of the best teachers in Moscow. Latin Pafnuti Chebyshev was taught at that time by a medical student, and in the future the chief physician of the Sheremetev Hospital, A.T. Tarasenkov. In the summer of 1837 Chebyshev began studying mathematics at Moscow University at the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Faculty of Philosophy. A significant influence on the formation of the range of scientific interests of the young Chebyshev had his teacher - Nikolai D. Brashman, a professor of applied mathematics and mechanics of Moscow University; thanks to him, in particular, Chebyshev got acquainted with the works of the French engineer Jean-Victor. In the 1840/1841 school year, participating in a student competition, Chebyshev received a silver medal for his work on finding the roots of the nth degree equation (the work itself was written by him in 1838 and was made on the basis of the Newton algorithm). In 1841, Chebyshev graduated from the Imperial Moscow University. At this time, the affairs of his parents because of the famine that engulfed a significant part of Russia in 1840, became frustrated, and the family could no longer financially support their son. However, a university graduate, despite his extremely constrained financial situation, stubbornly continued to do science. In 1846, he successfully defended his master's thesis “The Experience of an Elementary Analysis of Probability Theory”. In 1847, Chebyshev was approved as an adjunct professor at Petersburg University. To get the right to lecture at the university, he defended another thesis on the topic “On integration with logarithms”, after which he lectured on higher algebra, number theory, geometry, theory of elliptic functions and practical mechanics.More than once he read the course of the theory of probability, removing from it vague formulations and illegal statements and turning it into a strict mathematical discipline. In 1849, Chebyshev defended his doctoral thesis “Theory of Comparisons” at St. Petersburg University, after which in 1850 he became a professor at St. Petersburg University, occupying it until 1882. Working at Petersburg University, Chebyshev became close friends with the professor of applied mathematics I.I. Somov, who was also a student of N.D. Brashman, and this relationship grew into a deep friendship. In family terms, Chebyshev was alone, and this circumstance also contributed to his rapprochement with Somov’s large family. In 1852, Chebyshev made a scientific trip to the United Kingdom, France and Belgium, during which he familiarized himself with the practice of foreign engineering, with museum collections of machines and mechanisms, with the work of factories and mills, and also met with leading mathematicians and mechanics: O. Cauchy, J. Liouville, J.-A. Serret, L. Foucault, S. Hermite, J. Silvestrom, A. Cayley, T. Gregory. After that, he taught practical mechanics for a while at St. Petersburg University and the Alexander Lyceum.
In 1853, academicians P.N. Fuss, V.Ya. Struve, B.S. Jacobi, V.Ya. Bunyakovsky presented Chebyshev to the election to the associates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, emphasizing the importance of his work in the field of practical mechanics. In the same year he was elected adjunct, and in 1856 became an extraordinary academician. In 1858, in connection with his work on the theory of hinged parallelograms and the theory of approximation of functions, academician V.Ya. Bunyakovsky, M.V. Ostrogradsky, E.H. Lenz, B.S. Jacobi, A.Ya. Kupfer, O.V. Struve signed the submission for the election of Chebyshev as an ordinary academician, which happened the following year. In 1863, a special "Chebyshev Commission" took an active part from the Council of St. Petersburg University in the development of the University Charter. The university charter, signed by Alexander II on June 18, 1863, granted autonomy to the university as a corporation of professors. This charter existed until the epoch of counterreforms of the government of Alexander III and was considered by historians as the most liberal and successful university regulations in Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The merits of Chebyshev were assessed by the academic world in a dignified manner. The characteristic of his academic merit is very well expressed in the note of academicians A.A. Markova and I.Ya. Sonya, read out on the first meeting of the Academy after Chebyshev's death. This note says: “Chebyshev's works bear the imprint of genius. He invented new methods for solving many difficult questions that were posed long ago and remained unresolved. At the same time, he raised a number of new questions, which he worked on developing until the end of his days”. A similar view on the scientific contribution of P.L. Chebyshev adhered to other famous mathematicians of the XIX century. So, Charles Hermit argued that Chebyshev "is the pride of Russian science and one of the greatest mathematicians in Europe", and Gustav Mittag-Leffler wrote that Chebyshev is a brilliant mathematician and one of the greatest analysts of all time. Chebyshev was awarded the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, St. Vladimir of II degree, St. Anna of I degree, St. Stanislav of I degree, French Order of the Legion of Honor. He died in Petersburg at his desk. He was buried in his native estate, in the village of Spas-Prognage (now Zhukovsky district, Kaluga region) near the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, near the graves of the parents. Mountain and glacier in the northwestern part of the Circapp Earth on the island of Spitsbergen. Named by participants of the Russian branch of the Russian-Swedish expedition on the "degree measurement" on Svalbard. |
