Mark Semenovich Pinsker (russian: Марк Семено́вич Пи́нскер; April 24, 1925 – December 23, 2003) or Mark Shlemovich Pinsker (russian: Марк Шлемо́вич Пи́нскер) was a noted

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n mathematician in the fields of information theory,

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...

coding theory Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are studied ...

, ergodic theory,

mathematical statistics Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical an ...

, and

communication network A telecommunications network is a group of Node (networking), nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit ...

s. Pinsker studied stochastic processes under A. N. Kolmogorov in the 1950s, and later worked at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IITP),

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across ...

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. His accomplishments included a classic paper on the

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...

theory of dynamical systems which introduced the maximal partition with zero entropy, later known as Pinsker's partition. His work in mathematical statistics was devoted mostly to the applications of information theory, including asymptotically sufficient statistics for parameter estimation and nonparametric estimation;

Pinsker's inequality In information theory, Pinsker's inequality, named after its inventor Mark Semenovich Pinsker, is an inequality that bounds the total variation distance (or statistical distance) in terms of the Kullback–Leibler divergence. The inequality is tig ...

is named after him. He also produced notable results in the theory of switching networks and complexity problems in coding theory. Pinsker received the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

Claude E. Shannon Award in 1978, and the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 1996.

Selected works

* "Theory of curves in Hilbert space with stationary increments of order " Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR Ser. Mat., 19, 1955. * * ''Information and information stability of random variables and processes'', translated and edited by Amiel Feinstein, Holden-Day, San Francisco, 1964. * L. A. Bassalygo and M. S. Pinsker, "The complexity of an optimal non-blocking commutation scheme without reorganization", Problemy Peredaci Informacii, 9(1):84–87, 1973. Translated into English in ''Problems of Information Transmission'', 9 (1974) 64-66. * M. S. Pinsker. "On the complexity of a concentrator", 7th International Teletraffic Conference, pages 318/1-318/4, 1973. * "Estimation of error-correction complexity of Gallager low-density codes", ''Problems of Information Transmission'', 11:18—28, 1976. * "Reflections of Some Shannon Lecturers".

Notes

References

* "Review of Scientific Achievements of M. S. Pinsker", ''Problems of Information Transmission'' (translation of ''Problemy Peredachi Informatsii''), Volume 32, Number 1, January–March, 1996, pages 3–14.

External links

"Mark Semenovich Pinsker. In Memoriam", ''Problems of Information Transmission'', MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica, Volume 40, Number 1 / January, 2004, pages 1–4. ISSN 0032-9460. English version
* Ramesh Rao.

,

IEEE Information Theory Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Newsletter, September 1995. * Sasha Barg.
In Memoriam - Mark Semënovich Pinsker
, IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter, Volume 54, Number 3, September 2004.
Pinsker Marks Shlemovich
(1925–2003) author page at Math-Net.ru
"Reflections of Some Shannon Lecturers"
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pinsker, Mark Semenovich Russian information theorists Russian mathematicians Soviet mathematicians 1925 births 2003 deaths Mathematical statisticians