Viacheslav Pavlovich Belavkin (russian: Вячеслав Павлович Белавкин; 20 May 1946 – 27 November 2012) was a Russian-British

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 ...

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

. An active researcher, he was one of the pioneers of

quantum probability The Born rule (also called Born's rule) is a key postulate of quantum mechanics which gives the probability that a measurement of a quantum system will yield a given result. In its simplest form, it states that the probability density of findin ...

. His research spanned areas such as quantum filtering,

quantum information Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both th ...

and

quantum chaos Quantum chaos is a branch of physics which studies how chaos theory, chaotic classical dynamical systems can be described in terms of quantum theory. The primary question that quantum chaos seeks to answer is: "What is the relationship betwee ...

Biography

He was born in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

, and graduated from

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 ...

in 1970 where his teachers include

Evgeny Lifshitz Evgeny Mikhailovich Lifshitz (russian: Евге́ний Миха́йлович Ли́фшиц; February 21, 1915, Kharkiv, Russian Empire – October 29, 1985, Moscow, Russian SFSR) was a leading Soviet physicist and brother of the physicist ...

Victor Pavlovich Maslov Viktor Pavlovich Maslov (russian: Виктор Павлович Маслов; born 15 June 1930, in Moscow) is a Russian mathematical physicist. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He obtained his doctorate in physico-mathematical ...

Andrey Kolmogorov Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov ( rus, Андре́й Никола́евич Колмого́ров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ kəlmɐˈɡorəf, a=Ru-Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov.ogg, 25 April 1903 – 20 October 1987) was a Sovi ...

and Ruslan L. Stratonovich. In the 1980s Belavkin held visiting professorship in the

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) ( ga, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a statutory independent research institute in Ireland. It was established in 1940 on the initiative of the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, in Dub ...

, and the Volterra Centre in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

before taking up an appointment at the

in 1992. He was promoted to a Chair in Mathematical Physics in 1996. He and Ruslan L. Stratonovich were awarded the

State Prize of the Russian Federation The State Prize of the Russian Federation, officially translated in Russia as Russian Federation National Award, is a state honorary prize established in 1992 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 2004 the rules for selection of laureates ...

(formerly the Lenin Prize) for outstanding achievements in science and technology, in part due to his work on the

measurement problem In quantum mechanics, the measurement problem is the problem of how, or whether, wave function collapse occurs. The inability to observe such a collapse directly has given rise to different interpretations of quantum mechanics and poses a key se ...

. He is survived by his wife Nadezda Belavkin and son Roman Belavkin.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belavkin, Viacheslav 1946 births 2012 deaths Academics of the University of Nottingham Lenin Prize winners State Prize of the Russian Federation laureates Soviet mathematicians Moscow State University alumni Probability theorists Soviet physicists 20th-century British physicists Academics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies