Yakov Sinai facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yakov Sinai
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| Яков Синай | |
Sinai in 2007
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Yakov Grigorevich Sinai
September 21, 1935 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
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| Nationality | Russian / American |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Known for | Measure-preserving dynamical systems, various works on dynamical systems, mathematical and statistical physics, probability theory, mathematical fluid dynamics |
| Spouse(s) | Elena B. Vul |
| Awards | Boltzmann Medal (1986) Dannie Heineman Prize (1990) Dirac Prize (1992) Wolf Prize (1997) Nemmers Prize (2002) Lagrange Prize (2008) Henri Poincaré Prize (2009) Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2009) Leroy P. Steele Prize (2013) Abel Prize (2014) Marcel Grossmann Award (2015) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Moscow State University, Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | Andrey Kolmogorov |
| Doctoral students | Leonid Bunimovich Nikolai Chernov Dmitry Dolgopyat Svetlana Jitomirskaya Anatole Katok Konstantin Khanin Grigory Margulis Valeriy Oseledets Leonid Polterovich Marina Ratner Corinna Ulcigrai |
Yakov Grigorevich Sinai (Russian: Я́ков Григо́рьевич Сина́й; born September 21, 1935) is a famous Russian-American mathematician. He is known for his work on dynamical systems. These are systems that change over time, like how a pendulum swings or how planets move.
Sinai helped connect the world of predictable systems with the world of random systems. He also worked on mathematical physics and probability theory. His ideas have helped scientists understand many things in the physical world.
He has won many important awards, including the Nemmers Prize, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, and the Abel Prize. Since 1993, he has been a math professor at Princeton University. He is also a Senior Researcher at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Moscow, Russia.
Contents
About Yakov Sinai
Yakov Grigorevich Sinai was born on September 21, 1935, in Moscow, which was then part of the Soviet Union. His family was Jewish and many of them were academics. Both his parents were microbiologists. His grandfather, Veniamin Kagan, was a big influence on Yakov's life. He led the Department of Differential Geometry at Moscow State University.
Yakov Sinai studied at Moscow State University. He earned his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees there. His Ph.D. advisor was the famous mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov.
Understanding Predictability
Together with Kolmogorov, Sinai showed how to describe the "unpredictability" of dynamic systems. They developed an idea called Kolmogorov–Sinai entropy.
- If a system has zero entropy, it means it is completely predictable.
- If a system has non-zero entropy, it has some unpredictability. The amount of entropy tells you how unpredictable it is.
Sinai Billiards
In 1963, Sinai introduced the idea of "Sinai Billiards." Imagine a particle bouncing around inside a square room. Inside this room, there is also a round wall. The particle bounces off both the square walls and the round wall without losing energy.
Sinai proved that for most starting paths of the particle, this system is "ergodic." This means that over a long time, the particle will spend about the same amount of time in any part of the room. This was the first time anyone proved such a dynamic system was ergodic.
Other Important Work
Sinai has made many other important contributions to math and physics. For example, his work helped explain Kenneth Wilson's method for understanding how materials behave at different scales. This work led to Wilson winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1982.
He also worked on:
- How particles move in a gas.
- How energy levels are spread out in certain systems.
- Equations that describe how fluids move, like water or air.
Career and Recognition
From 1960 to 1971, Sinai worked as a researcher at Moscow State University. In 1971, he became a senior researcher at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Russia. He also kept teaching at Moscow State. He became a full professor at Moscow State in 1981. This was later than expected, possibly because he supported a human rights activist in 1968.
Since 1993, Sinai has been a math professor at Princeton University in the United States. He still works at the Landau Institute in Russia.
In 2002, Sinai won the Nemmers Prize. This award recognized his "revolutionizing" work in many areas of mathematics and physics. In 2005, a special issue of the Moscow Mathematical Journal was dedicated to him. It said that Yakov Sinai is "one of the greatest mathematicians of our time" and that his passion for science has inspired many scientists around the world.
In 2013, he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for his lifetime achievements. In 2014, he was awarded the Abel Prize, which is one of the highest honors in mathematics. The prize recognized his work on dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics. When presenting the award, Jordan Ellenberg said Sinai solved real-world physics problems "with the soul of a mathematician." The prize came with 6 million Norwegian krone, which was about $1 million US dollars at the time.
Sinai has won many other awards, including:
- The Boltzmann Medal (1986)
- The Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (1990)
- The Dirac Prize (1992)
- The Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1997)
- The Lagrange Prize (2008)
- The Henri Poincaré Prize (2009)
He is a member of many important scientific groups, like the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. He also has honorary degrees from several universities around the world.
Sinai has written over 250 papers and books. Some math ideas are named after him, like "Sinai's random walk" and "Pirogov–Sinai theory." He has also guided more than 50 students through their Ph.D. studies.
Sinai is married to Elena B. Vul, who is also a mathematician and physicist. They have written several papers together.
Books by Yakov Sinai
- Introduction to Ergodic Theory. Princeton 1976.
- Topics in Ergodic Theory. Princeton 1977, 1994.
- Probability Theory – an Introductory Course. Springer, 1992.
- Theory of probability and Random Processes (with Koralov). 2nd edition, Springer, 2007.
- Theory of Phase Transitions – Rigorous Results. Pergamon, Oxford 1982.
- Ergodic Theory (with Isaac Kornfeld and Sergei Fomin). Springer, Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften 1982.
- "What is a Billiard?", Notices AMS 2004.
- "Mathematicians and physicists = Cats and Dogs?" in Bulletin of the AMS. 2006, vol. 4.
- "How mathematicians and physicists found each other in the theory of dynamical systems and in statistical mechanics", in Mathematical Events of the Twentieth Century (editors: Bolibruch, Osipov, & Sinai). Springer 2006, p. 399.
See also
In Spanish: Yákov Sinái para niños
