STEKLOV

RUSSIA (see also List of Individuals)

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28.12.1863 Gorky/RU - 30.5.1926 Gaspra/RU

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Vladimir Andreevich Steklov was born in the province of Nishi-Novgorod as the son of a country priest. He graduated from the Kharkov University in 1887 and continued studies there with Aleksandr Mikhailovich Liapunov (1857-1918). Steklov's first period of research until 1909 was entirely dedicated to hydrodynamics. He was appointed associate mechanics professor in 1896 and promoted to full professor in 1902. Once Liapunov had moved to Saint Petersburg, Steklov took over his chair of applied mathematics and also presided over the Kharkov Mathematical Society. Yet, also Steklov left Harkov in 1906 to take over the chair of mathematics at the University of Saint Petersburg. He was elected Associate Member of the Academy of Sciences in 1910 and its full Member in 1912. Steklov's famous students of that time were the mathematicians V.I. Smirnov and Aleksandr Alexandrovich Fridman (1888-1925). The Steklov Mathematical Seminar in Saint Petersburg is still a center of mathematical contact and research of which the Proceedings were published in the USA first and in Jerusalem later.

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During his first scientific period, Steklov worked mainly on the potential theory, in boundary value problems such as formulated by the Germans Dirichlet and von Neumann and on the Laplace equation as applied to questions in fluid mechanics. The 1901 paper was written by Liapunov and Steklov and is related to general solution techniques in mathematical physics. From 1900 Steklov turned toward mathematical problems where he worked in differential equations and where he is known for the introduction of the closure problem and the determining conditions for an auto-function. Steklov took also interest in questions of the history of mathematical sciences.

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_{Ignacius, G.J. (1967). Vladimir Andreevich Steklov. Izd. Nauk: Moscow.}

_{Juskevic, A.P. (1975). Steklov. Scienziati e tecnologi 3: 151-152. Mondadori: Milano. P}

_{Krilov, A. (1926). Prof. V.A. Steklov. Nature 118(2959): 91-92.}

_{Steklov, V.A. (1893). On the motion of a heavy rigid body in a fluid. Memoirs Mathematical Society Kharkov 14: 1-234, Abstract also in Mathematische Annalen 1893, 42: 273-274. Steklov, V.A. (1901). General methods to solve problems in mathematical physics. Zilberberg: Harkov (in Russian).}

_{Steklov, V.A. (1902). Sur les problèmes fondamentaux de la physique mathématique. Paris. http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/Mathematicians/Steklov.html http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/STEKLOVhistory/Mathematicians/Steklov.html P}