Boris Nikolayevich Delaunay or Delone (russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Делоне́; 15 March 1890 – 17 July 1980) was a Soviet and Russian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, mountain climber, and the father of

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, Nikolai Borisovich Delone. The spelling ''Delone'' is a straightforward

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

from Cyrillic he often used in later publications, while ''Delaunay'' is the French version he used in the early French and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

publications.

Biography

Boris Delone got his surname from his ancestor French Army officer de Launay, who was captured in Russia during Napoleon's invasion of 1812. De Launay was a nephew of the

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...

governor marquis de Launay. He married a woman from the Tukhachevsky

noble family Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteris ...

and stayed in Russia. When Boris was a young boy his family spent summers in the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Swi ...

where he learned mountain climbing. By 1913, he became one of the top three Russian mountain climbers. After the Russian Revolution, he climbed mountains in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

and Altai. One of the mountains (4300 m) near

Belukha Belukha Mountain (russian: Белуха, lit=whitey; Altai: Ӱч-Сӱмер, lit. 'three peaks'; kk, Мұзтау Шыңы, lit=icemount peak), located in the Katun Mountains, is the highest peak of the Altai Mountains in Russia and the high ...

is named after him. In the 1930s, he was among the first to receive a qualification of Master of mountain climbing of the USSR. Future Nobel laureate in physics

Igor Tamm Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm ( rus, И́горь Евге́ньевич Тамм , p=ˈiɡərʲ jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvitɕ ˈtam , a=Ru-Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm.ogg; 8 July 1895 – 12 April 1971) was a Soviet physicist who received the 1958 Nobel Prize in ...

was his associate in setting tourist camps in the mountains. Boris Delaunay worked in the fields of

modern algebra In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term ...

, the

geometry of numbers Geometry of numbers is the part of number theory which uses geometry for the study of algebraic numbers. Typically, a ring of algebraic integers is viewed as a lattice in \mathbb R^n, and the study of these lattices provides fundamental informatio ...

. He used the results of

Evgraf Fedorov Evgraf Stepanovich Fedorov (russian: Евгра́ф Степа́нович Фёдоров, – 21 May 1919) was a Russian mathematician, crystallographer and mineralogist. Fedorov was born in the Russian city of Orenburg. His father was a top ...

, Hermann Minkowski,

Georgy Voronoy Georgy Feodosevich Voronoy (russian: Георгий Феодосьевич Вороной; ukr, Георгій Феодосійович Вороний; 28 April 1868 – 20 November 1908) was an Russian Empire, Imperial Russian mathematician of U ...

, and others in his development of modern mathematical crystallography and general mathematical model of crystals. He invented what is now called

Delaunay triangulation In mathematics and computational geometry, a Delaunay triangulation (also known as a Delone triangulation) for a given set P of discrete points in a general position is a triangulation DT(P) such that no point in P is inside the circumcircle o ...

in 1934;

Delone set In the mathematical theory of metric spaces, ε-nets, ε-packings, ε-coverings, uniformly discrete sets, relatively dense sets, and Delone sets (named after Boris Delone) are several closely related definitions of well-spaced sets of points, a ...

s are also named after him. Among his best students are the mathematicians Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Igor Shafarevich. Delaunay was elected the corresponding member of the

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

in 1929.Boris Nikolaevich Deaunay (in Russian)
Division of Higher Geometry and Topology, Mathematics and Mechanics Department,

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

. Delaunay is credited as being an organizer, in Leningrad in 1934, of the first

mathematical olympiad Mathematics competitions or mathematical olympiads are competitive events where participants complete a mathematics, math test. These tests may require multiple choice or numeric answers, or a detailed written solution or proof. International math ...

for high school students in the Soviet Union.S. S. Ryshkov, D. K. Faddeev and M. I. Shtogri
Boris Nikolaevich Delone (on the occasion of his eightieth birthday).
Russian Mathematical Surveys, vol. 26 (1971), pp. 199–203; p. 200

Books

* Delone, B. N.; Raikov, D. A. (1948, 1949). ''Analytic Geometry'' (2 vols.). State Technical Press. (in Russian) * Kolmogorov, Andrey Nikolaevich et al. (1969). ''Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning'', chapter ''Analytic Geometry'', by B. N. Delone. MIT Press. (translated from the Russian)

References

External links

Biography (in Russian)
on the website of the

* *
Boris Nikolaevich Delone (On his seventieth birthday)

80th Birthday - Reproduction of an article in Russian Mathematical Surveys 26 (1971) 199-203, with the kind permission of the London Mathematical Society
Page

Also i
PDF format
* Nikolay P. Dolbilin
''The Delone Peak'', 2010.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Delaunay, Boris 1890 births 1980 deaths 20th-century Russian mathematicians Mathematicians from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology faculty Moscow State University alumni Saint Petersburg State University faculty Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Geometers Russian people of French descent Sportspeople from Saint Petersburg Russian mountain climbers Soviet mathematicians Soviet mountain climbers