Leonid Vitalyevich Kantorovich ( rus, Леони́д Вита́льевич Канторо́вич, , p=lʲɪɐˈnʲit vʲɪˈtalʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kəntɐˈrovʲɪtɕ, a=Ru-Leonid_Vitaliyevich_Kantorovich.ogg; 19 January 19127 April 1986) was a Soviet

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 ...

and economist, known for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources. He is regarded as the founder of linear programming. He was the winner of the

Stalin Prize Stalin Prize may refer to: * The State Stalin Prize in science and engineering and in arts, awarded 1941 to 1954, later known as the USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, ...

in 1949 and the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

in 1975.

Biography

Kantorovich was born on 19 January 1912, to a Russian Jewish family. His father was a doctor practicing in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. In 1926, at the age of fourteen, he began his studies at Leningrad State University. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in 1930, and began his graduate studies. In 1934, at the age of 22 years, he became a full professor. Later, Kantorovich worked for the

Soviet government The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...

. He was given the task of

optimizing Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

production in a plywood industry. He devised the mathematical technique now known as linear programming in 1939, some years before it was advanced by

George Dantzig George Bernard Dantzig (; November 8, 1914 – May 13, 2005) was an American mathematical scientist who made contributions to industrial engineering, operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics. Dantzig is known for his ...

. He authored several books including ''The Mathematical Method of Production Planning and Organization'' (Russian original 1939), ''The Best Uses of Economic Resources'' (Russian original 1959), and, with Vladimir Ivanovich Krylov, ''Approximate methods of higher analysis'' (Russian original 1936). For his work, Kantorovich was awarded the

in 1949. After 1939, he became a professor at Military Engineering-Technical University. During the Siege of Leningrad, Kantorovich was a professor at VITU of Navy and worked on safety of the

Road of Life The Road of Life () was the set of ice road transport routes across Lake Ladoga to Leningrad during the Second World War. They were the only Soviet winter surface routes into the city while it was besieged by the German Army Group North under ...

. He calculated the optimal distance between cars on ice in dependence of the thickness of ice and the temperature of the air. In December 1941 and January 1942, Kantorovich walked himself between cars driving on the ice of Lake Ladoga on the

to ensure that cars did not sink. However, many cars with food for survivors of the siege were destroyed by the German airstrikes. In 1948 Kantorovich was assigned to the atomic project of the USSR. For his feat and courage Kantorovich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, and was decorated with the medal ''For Defense of Leningrad''. After 1960, Kantorovich lived and worked in Novosibirsk, where he created and took charge of the Department of Computational Mathematics in Novosibirsk State University.Kantorovich`s biography in Russian
/ref> The Nobel Memorial Prize, which he shared with Tjalling Koopmans, was given "for their contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources."

Mathematics

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...

, Kantorovich had important results in functional analysis, approximation theory, and

operator theory In mathematics, operator theory is the study of linear operators on function spaces, beginning with differential operators and integral operators. The operators may be presented abstractly by their characteristics, such as bounded linear operators ...

. In particular, Kantorovich formulated some fundamental results in the theory of normed vector lattices, especially in Dedekind complete vector lattices called "K-spaces" which are now referred to as "Kantorovich spaces" in his honor. Kantorovich showed that functional analysis could be used in the analysis of iterative methods, obtaining the Kantorovich inequalities on the convergence rate of the gradient method and of Newton's method (see the Kantorovich theorem). Kantorovich considered infinite-dimensional optimization problems, such as the Kantorovich-Monge problem in transport theory. His analysis proposed the Kantorovich-Rubinstein metric, which is used in

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 ...

, in the theory of the weak convergence of probability measures. Image:Kantorovich (Petrov-Vodkin).jpg, Portrait by Petrov-Vodkin. 1938. Image:Leonid Kantorovich 1976.jpg, 1976 File:Espionage den04 40.png, Original CIA file on Kantorovich, seized from the former US Embassy in Tehran.

Notes

References

* * * Kantorovich, L.V. (1959).
"The Best Use of Economic Resources"
'(). Pergamon Press, 1965. * Klaus Hagendorf (2008)
Spreadsheet presenting all examples of Kantorovich
1939 with the

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

Calc Solver as well as the lp_solver. ;Nobel prize lecture * Kantorovich, Leonid
"Mathematics in Economics: Achievements, Difficulties, Perspectives"
Nobel Prize lecture, December 11, 1975

Nobel Prize website

External links

* * (With additional photos.)

– IDEAS/RePEc *
Biography Leonid Kantorovich
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
Biographical documentary about L.Kantorovich
by '' Rossiya-Culture''

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kantorovich, Leonid 1912 births 1986 deaths 20th-century Russian economists 20th-century Russian mathematicians Mathematicians from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Fellows of the Econometric Society Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Military Engineering-Technical University faculty Novosibirsk State University academic personnel Saint Petersburg State University alumni Saint Petersburg State University faculty Nobel laureates in Economics Stalin Prize winners Lenin Prize winners Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Approximation theorists Functional analysts General equilibrium theorists Mathematical economists Operations researchers Operator theorists Variational analysts Russian economists Russian Jews Russian mathematicians Soviet economists Soviet Jews Soviet mathematicians Soviet Nobel laureates Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery

Biography

Mathematics

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links