Lyudmila Keldysh facts for kids

Lyudmila Keldysh (1904–1976) was an important Soviet mathematician. She was famous for her work in set theory and geometric topology. These are branches of mathematics that study collections of objects and the properties of shapes.

A Life in Mathematics: Lyudmila Keldysh

Lyudmila Vsevolodovna Keldysh was born on March 12, 1904, in Orenburg, Russia. Her parents were Mariya Aleksandrovna and Vsevolod Mikhailovich Keldysh. Her family had a good background, but they faced challenges after the Russian Revolution.

Early Life and Education

Because her father was a construction expert for the military, Lyudmila's family moved often. She lived in Helsinki from 1905 to 1907. Then she moved to St. Petersburg until 1909. After that, her family moved to Riga, Latvia.

Her father worked at the Riga Polytechnic Institute. But in 1915, a German invasion forced the family to move to Moscow. They lived in the Losinoostrovsky District. Lyudmila finished her schooling in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, where her family moved in 1918.

She continued her education at Moscow State University. She graduated in 1925. In 1923, while studying, she joined a research group led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin. Petr Sergeevich Novikov, who she later married, was also in this group. In 1930, Luzin published Lyudmila's first mathematical theory. It involved evaluating complex sets of numbers.

Teaching and Family Life

Keldysh started teaching in 1930 at the Moscow Aviation Institute. Her first son, Leonid Keldysh, was born in 1931. In 1934, she left the Aviation Institute. She began teaching at the Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Here, she focused on set theories.

That same year, she married Novikov. She also published three important papers on mathematical functions. During a difficult time in the country, her family faced challenges. Her parents were briefly arrested before being released.

In the next few years, she had two more sons: Andrei Petrovich Novikov and Sergei Petrovich Novikov. Both of them grew up to be famous mathematicians. Lyudmila continued her research on complex sets of numbers. In 1941, she defended her thesis.

Wartime Challenges and Return to Research

Before Lyudmila received her degree, her family had to flee from advancing German troops. Most of the faculty from the Institute of the Academy of Sciences were considered evacuees. But Keldysh and her three sons were treated as refugees when they arrived in Kazan.

They found a place to stay in the gym of Kazan University with many other refugees. Later, Novikov arrived, and the family got a dorm room. Novikov was ill and needed surgery. Lyudmila spent her time caring for her husband in the hospital and her children in the dorm.

In late 1942, the family was able to return to Moscow. Lyudmila had two daughters, Nina and Elena, during this time. In 1944, she published a paper called On the structure of measurable sets B. In 1945, she published Open mappings of A-sets. This paper was a big turning point in her work.

Later Career and Legacy

In 1945, Lyudmila's thesis was finally published. From this point on, her work focused more on geometric topology. She continued to publish many papers from the mid-1940s into the 1960s.

Keldysh's research was honored many times. She received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. She also received the Order of Maternal Glory in the 2nd degree. In 1958, she received the Prize of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

In 1964, Keldysh became a full professor at Moscow State University. In 1966, she published a book called Topological embeddings into Euclidean space. This book helped her students understand her lectures better. She taught until 1974. She resigned to protest when one of her students was expelled.

Her husband, Novikov, became ill and passed away in January 1975. Lyudmila Keldysh died one year and one month later, on February 16, 1976, in Moscow. Her students included A. V. Chernavskii.

See also

In Spanish: Liudmila Kéldysh para niños