Mikhail Yakovlevich Suslin (russian: Михаи́л Я́ковлевич Су́слин; , November 15, 1894 – 21 October 1919, Krasavka) (sometimes transliterated Souslin) was a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
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 ...
who made major contributions to the fields of
general topology
In mathematics, general topology is the branch of topology that deals with the basic set-theoretic definitions and constructions used in topology. It is the foundation of most other branches of topology, including differential topology, geomet ...
and
descriptive set theory
In mathematical logic, descriptive set theory (DST) is the study of certain classes of "well-behaved" subsets of the real line and other Polish spaces. As well as being one of the primary areas of research in set theory, it has applications to ot ...
.
Biography
Mikhail Suslin was born on November 15, 1894 in the village of Krasavka, the only child of poor peasants Yakov Gavrilovich and Matrena Vasil'evna Suslin. From a young age, Suslin showed a keen interest in mathematics and was encouraged to continue his education by his primary school teacher, Vera Andreevna Teplogorskaya-Smirnova. From 1905 to 1913 he attended Balashov boys' grammar school.
In 1913, Suslin enrolled at the
Imperial Moscow University
Imperial Moscow University was one of the oldest universities of the Russian Empire, established in 1755. It was the first of the twelve imperial universities of the Russian Empire.
History of the University
Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov ...
and studied under the tutelage of
Nikolai Luzin
Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin (also spelled Lusin; rus, Никола́й Никола́евич Лу́зин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈluzʲɪn, a=Ru-Nikilai Nikilayevich Luzin.ogg; 9 December 1883 – 28 January 1950) was a Soviet/Ru ...
. He graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1917 and immediately began working at the
Ivanovo-Voznesensk Polytechnic Institute
Ivanovo-Voznesensk Polytechnic Institute (IVPI; russian: Иваново-Вознесенский политехнический институт) was a higher-education institution in the city of Ivanovo-Voznesensk (present-day Ivanovo) in Russi ...
.
Suslin died of
typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
...
in the
1919 Moscow epidemic following the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, at the age of 24.
Work
His name is especially associated to
Suslin's problem In mathematics, Suslin's problem is a question about totally ordered sets posed by and published posthumously.
It has been shown to be independent of the standard axiomatic system of set theory known as ZFC: showed that the statement can neither ...
, a question relating to
totally ordered set
In mathematics, a total or linear order is a partial order in which any two elements are comparable. That is, a total order is a binary relation \leq on some set X, which satisfies the following for all a, b and c in X:
# a \leq a ( reflexive) ...
s that was eventually found to be
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
of the standard system of set-theoretic axioms,
ZFC.
He contributed greatly to the theory of
analytic set
In the mathematical field of descriptive set theory, a subset of a Polish space X is an analytic set if it is a continuous image of a Polish space. These sets were first defined by and his student .
Definition
There are several equivalent d ...
s, sometimes called after him, a kind of a
set of reals that is definable via
trees
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
. In fact, while he was a research student of
Nikolai Luzin
Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin (also spelled Lusin; rus, Никола́й Никола́евич Лу́зин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈluzʲɪn, a=Ru-Nikilai Nikilayevich Luzin.ogg; 9 December 1883 – 28 January 1950) was a Soviet/Ru ...
(in 1917) he found an error in an argument of
Lebesgue
Henri Léon Lebesgue (; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician known for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th-century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of ...
, who believed he had proved that for any
Borel set
In mathematics, a Borel set is any set in a topological space that can be formed from open sets (or, equivalently, from closed sets) through the operations of countable union, countable intersection, and relative complement. Borel sets are named ...
in
, the projection onto the real axis was also a Borel set.
Publications
Suslin only published one paper during his life: a 4-page note.
*
*
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See also
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suslin
1894 births
1919 deaths
20th-century Russian mathematicians
Set theorists
Deaths from typhus