The name of Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov is inscribed in golden letters in the history of world mathematics. The scientist made a significant contribution to the analytic theory of numbers and created the method of trigonometric sums. He is the only mathematician in Russia in whose honor a memorial museum was organized during his lifetime.
A family
Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov was born on September 2, 1891 in the village of Milolyub, Pskov province. In his family, several generations of men on the maternal and paternal lines were Orthodox priests.
The mathematician's father, Matthew Avraamovich, was a graduate of the Pskov Theological Seminary. He combined pastoral service and pedagogical activity as the head of the parish school. In childhood, the pope was an authority for his son and instilled in him a love of Orthodox worship.
But the boy had a penchant for exact sciences from his mother, who at one time graduated from the Mariinsky Gymnasium in Pskov with a silver medal, and then was a teacher in a parish school.
Ivan was not the only child in the family, he grew up with his older sister Nadezhda, who later became an economist and statistician and headed the department of statistics at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute named after Ordzhonikidze.
Early biography
Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov from childhood was extraordinary. Already at the age of three, he learned to read, count and write fluently. Parents early noticed Vania's penchant for mathematics and encouraged her in every way. In addition, they strove to comprehensively develop children: they were engaged in painting with them, staged home performances.
The future scientist received secondary education at the Velikoluksky real school. There, he mastered higher mathematics, which was hardly given even to university students.
In 1910, Vinogradov entered the St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. In 1914 he graduated from it, but was left to prepare for a degree. In 1915, on the initiative of Professor V. Steklov, he was awarded a scholarship. Soon, Ivan Matveevich became a doctor of sciences.
Career math
In the years 1918-1920. The scientist worked at Tomsk and Perm State Universities. In 1920, he became a professor and began to work at the Polytechnic Institute in Leningrad. In 1929 he received the title of academician of sciences, and in 1932 he headed the Physics and Mathematics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1934, research institutes were divided into two institutes: mathematicians and physicists, and Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov became the director of the first of them. He held this position for more than forty-five years - until his death.
Since 1948, the scientist was the chief editor of the mathematical series of the journal Izvestiya AN SSSR. In 1977-1985 presided over the National Committee of Soviet Mathematicians and acted as editor-in-chief of volumes 1–5 of the Mathematical Encyclopedia.
Scientific activity
Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov devoted his scientific works mainly to analytical number theory. The main achievement of the scientist is the development of the method of trigonometric sums, with which he solved problems that were not subject to mathematicians of the early twentieth century.
In the USSR Academy of Sciences, the academician enjoyed great authority. In many ways, he was considered the informal head of all Soviet mathematicians. Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov created many scientific works, including the textbook “Fundamentals of Number Theory,” which was subsequently reprinted and translated into other languages.
Awards and prizes
In 1937, the mathematician received the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree for his scientific work on a new method in number theory. In 1972, he was awarded the Lenin Prize for a monograph on the method of trigonometric sums. In 1983 he was awarded the USSR State Prize for the textbook Fundamentals of Number Theory.
Ivan Matveevich is twice a Hero of Socialist Labor (received this title in 1945 and 1971), the owner of five orders of Lenin and the Order of the October Revolution. In addition, the academician was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Second World War" and the Lomonosov Gold Medal.
Personal life
The mathematician Ivan Vinogradov was never married, lived with his sister Nadezhda. The scientist jokingly said that he had no time to think about love, because for nine months of the year he was proving theorems. But in fact, Vinogradov was afraid that women would consider marriage with him as a profitable party.
In the last years of his life, the mathematician spent a lot of time at the cottage in Abramtsevo, where he was engaged in floriculture and gardening. However, he did not leave work and until the end of his days led the Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Every day, without using the elevator, Ivan Matveevich took quick steps to his office and, sitting at his desk, was busy with current affairs. The scientist died on March 20, 1983, at the age of 91. It rests at the Novodevichy cemetery of the capital.
Interesting Facts
Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov was distinguished by a phenomenal memory: he remembered the dates of various historical events by heart, could instantly name the length and area of the basin of any river in the world. The mathematician had never been a member of the CPSU; he liked to listen to Orthodox church services on the radio.
From the photo of Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov, you can’t say that he was distinguished by phenomenal physical strength. But that was exactly so. Eyewitnesses said that a scientist could raise a chair with one hand along with a person sitting on it. In addition, he alone carried the piano up the stairs to the fourth floor.
How twice the Hero of Socialist Labor relied on the installation of a lifetime bronze bust in the homeland. The authorities did not have the means to erect the monument, and then Vinogradov himself paid for the production of the monument. In 1979, it was inaugurated in Velikiye Luki.
Ivan Matveevich was widely known and revered abroad. He was a member of the London, Amsterdam and Indian mathematical communities, and was also included in the Philadelphia Philosophical Society. He was a foreign member of the Paris, Danish, Hungarian, Armenian Academy of Sciences.
Memory
During the life of Ivan Matveevich, a memorial museum dedicated to him was opened. He is located in Velikiye Luki, not far from the square with a mathematician bust, in the restored house of the Vinogradov family. The memorial fund of the museum consists of documents and personal belongings of the scientist, foreign and domestic awards, a home library and individual scientific works, as well as anniversary gifts and objects that characterize his hobbies. In total - about six thousand exhibits, part of which Ivan Matveevich handed over to the museum himself.
Since its foundation, the memorial has been visited by over one hundred thousand tourists from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Krasnoyarsk, Pskov, Murmansk, Penza and other cities. Among visitors there are also foreigners.
By the centenary of the birth of a mathematician, a gold medal was established at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which was named after him. Subsequently, it was transformed into a prize of the Vinogradov RAS.
In 1983, in honor of Ivan Matveyevich, one of the streets of Teply Stan was named - a district in the South-Western District of Moscow.