Boris Levitan (7 June 1914 – 4 April 2004) was a

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 ...

known in particular for his work on almost periodic functions, and Sturm–Liouville operators, especially, on

inverse scattering In mathematics and physics, the inverse scattering problem is the problem of determining characteristics of an object, based on data of how it scatters incoming radiation or particles. It is the inverse problem to the direct scattering problem, wh ...

Life

Boris Levitan was born in

Berdyansk Berdiansk or Berdyansk ( uk, Бердя́нськ, translit=Berdiansk, ; russian: Бердя́нск, translit=Berdyansk ) is a port city in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast (province) in south-eastern Ukraine. It is on the northern coast of the Sea o ...

(south-eastern

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

), and grew up in

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Kharkov University The Kharkiv University or Karazin University ( uk, Каразінський університет), or officially V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University ( uk, Харківський національний університет імені ...

in 1936; in 1938, he submitted his PhD thesis "''Some Generalization of Almost Periodic Function''" under the supervision of

Naum Akhiezer Naum Ilyich Akhiezer ( uk, Нау́м Іллі́ч Ахіє́зер; russian: link=no, Нау́м Ильи́ч Ахие́зер; 6 March 1901 – 3 June 1980) was a Soviet and Ukrainian mathematician of Jewish origin, known for his works in appr ...

. Then he defended the habilitation thesis "''Theory of Generalized Translation Operators''". He was drafted into the army at the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

in 1941, and served until 1944. From 1944 to 1961 he worked at the

Dzerzhinsky Military Academy Russia has a number of military academies of different specialties. This article primarily lists institutions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation rather than those of the Soviet Armed Forces. Russian institutions designated as an "acad ...

, and from 1961 until about 1992 at Moscow University. In 1992 Levitan emigrated to the United States. During the last years of his life, he worked in the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

References

Mathematical analysts National University of Kharkiv alumni 1914 births 2004 deaths People from Berdiansk Ukrainian mathematicians Ukrainian Jews Soviet mathematicians Russian emigrants to the United States {{Europe-mathematician-stub