MESHCHERSKY

RUSSIA (see also List of Individuals)

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10.8.1859 Arkhangelsk/RU - 7.1.1935 Leningrad/RU

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Ivan Vsevolodovich Meshchersky graduated as a mathematician from the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Saint Petersburg University in 1882. In 1889 he obtained the master's degree in applied mathematics and was from 1890 a Lecturer at his university. In 1891 he was appointed to the chair of mechanics at the Saint Petersburg Women's College and held this position, in addition to a number of other posts, until 1919 when the College seized to exist as an independent institution after it had been incorporated into Saint Petersburg University.

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Meshchersky undertook research in mechanics and published in 1886 the work The pressure on a wedge in a two-dimensional stream of unbounded width. It generalized the solution of a problem previously considered by Dmitry Konstantinovich Bobylev (1842-1917) in 1881 on the flow of a jet around a symmetric wedge. Meshchersky obtained the complete solution and considered also the detailed mathematical methods previously used in Western Europe for such flow types. He was later famous for having considered the problem of the motion of a body with a variable mass, such as after a meteorite fall onto the earth, or the decrease of a rocket mass due to consumption of fuel. He also published The teaching of mechanics in certain institutions of higher education in Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany, in 1895. This work played a major role in raising the standards of teaching mechanics in Russia thereafter. He was appointed Head of Applied Mathematics at the Saint Petersburg Institute in 1902. Meshchersky further published in 1914 A collection of problems in mechanics; this famous book saw its 26th edition in 1960 and was also available in English.

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_{Anonymous (1988). N.S. Ermolaeva, D.K. Bobylev and I.V. Meshchersky's work on the hydrodynamic theory of jets. Studies in the history of physics and mechanics: 201-217.}

_{Bogolyubov, A.N. (1983). Matematiki, mekhaniki: Biografichesky spravochnik. Kiev. P}

_{Grigorian, A.T. (1974). Meshchersky. Dictionary of scientific biography 9: 323-325.}

_{Karelitz, G.B., Ormondroyd, J. (1939). Problems in mechanics, based on the original collection of I.V. Meshchersky. MacMillan: New York.}

_{Meshchersky, I.V. (1887). Svod opytov i nabliudenii khoziaev po razvedeniiu kormovoi kukuruzy i silosovaniiu zelenykh i drugikh kormov. Demakova: Saint Petersburg. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/Mathematicians/Meshchersky.html http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/MESHCHERSKYhistory/Mathematicians/Meshchersky.html http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:AGYgi_gUmgsJ:ens.math.univ-montp2.fr/ SPIP/article.php3%3Fid_article%3D1552+meshchersky+ivan&hl=de}