Jan Nikolaevich Spielrein (russian: Ян Николаевич Шпильрейн; 14/26 June 1887 – 21 January 1938) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

scientist in the field of

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

, Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Biography

He was born in 1887 in the

Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...

. Spielrein was educated in Rostov-on-Don. In 1907 he graduated from the Department of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Sorbonne, in 1911 the Higher Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe. Since 1911 Spielrein was an assistant professor at the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wit ...

. In the second half of 1918 he returned from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, taught at the Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute. In 1920–1921 Spielrein worked in the Bureau of Foreign Science and Technology in Moscow. Since 1921, he holds the post of professor of the electrical engineering faculty of the Moscow Higher Technical School. In 1930, Spielrein joined the newly formed

Moscow Power Engineering Institute National Research University "Moscow Power Engineering Institute" (MPEI) is a public university based in Moscow, Russia. It offers training in the fields of Power Engineering, Electric Engineering, Radio Engineering, Electronics, Information Tec ...

. Until the end of his life he was a professor, head of the department of higher mathematics, dean of the general and electrophysical faculties of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. His field of research was the application of

vector calculus Vector calculus, or vector analysis, is concerned with differentiation and integration of vector fields, primarily in 3-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^3. The term "vector calculus" is sometimes used as a synonym for the broader subject ...

, tensor analysis and other mathematical methods in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, heating engineering and radio engineering. He was also the author of the first handbook in the USSR on special functions in engineering calculations, one of the first to introduce a vector presentation in the course of theoretical mechanics. Spielrein was arrested on September 10, 1937 and sentenced to the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

by the

Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, r=Verkhovnyy Sovet Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respubl ...

on January 21, 1938, on charges of participating in the Democratic Party. He was executed by a firing squad at the

Kommunarka shooting ground The Kommunarka firing range (russian: Расстрельный полигон «Коммунарка»), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out th ...

on the same day. On February 4, 1956 Spielrein was rehabilitated.

Literature

* Jean Spielrein. ''Lehrbuch der Vektorrechnung nach den Bedürfnissen in der technischen Mechanik und Elektrizitätslehre.'' Stuttgart: Konrad Wittwer, 1916. * Jean Spielrein. ''Vectorrechnung: Lehrbuch der vektorrechnung nach den bedürfnissen in der technischen mechanik und elektrizitätslehre.'' 2 verb. und verm. Aufl. Mit 62 textabbildungen und einer formelsammlung. Stuttgart: Verlag von Konrad Wittwer, 1926. — 434 s. * Векторное исчисление. Руководство для инженеров и физиков. М.—Л.: Госиздат, 1925. — 324 стр. * Современные математические методы в применении к вопросам электротехники и теплотехники. М.-Л.: Объединённое научно-техническое издательство, Главная редакция энергетической литературы, 1936.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spielrein, Jan Nikolaevich Moscow Power Engineering Institute faculty Soviet mathematicians Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences People executed by the Soviet Union by firing squad 1887 births 1938 deaths Scientists from Rostov-on-Don University of Paris alumni University of Stuttgart faculty Soviet rehabilitations