Person: Privalov, Ivan Ivanovich
Ivan Privalov was a Russian mathematician who worked on analytic functions.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Ivan Andreevich was a merchant working in Nizhny Lomov but he also owned a foundry in the major city of Nizhny Novgorod about 180 km to the north.
- Ivan Ivanovich's early education was in Nizhny Lomov after which he attended the Gymnasium in Novgorod from 1901 to 1909, graduating with a gold medal.
- Of the mathematicians, Konstantin Alekseevich Andreev was best known for his work on geometry and was Dean of the Faculty during Privalov's undergraduate years, Dimitri Fedorovich Egorov was a leading researcher in differential geometry and integral equations, Leonid Kuzmich Lakhtin was interested in analysis and probability, and Boleslav Kornelievich Mlodzeevskii had been the first to give lectures at Moscow University on set theory and the theory of functions.
- Privalov was most attracted by Egorov's lectures and began to attend his seminar.
- We should mention that Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin, although seven years older that Privalov, was a student at the same time.
- During his undergraduate years, Privalov was an active member of the Student Mathematics Circle and served as its President.
- Egorov was very impressed with Privalov's abilities and recommended that he remain at Moscow University to undertake research.
- The lecture by Privalov on 18 December 1912 to the Moscow Mathematical Society, which Egorov refers to in this recommendation, was Properties of expansions in terms of orthogonal functions and it became his first paper appearing in print in 1914.
- Privalov smoked a lot, more as time went on.
- Then (in his own words) he got tired of this course and began to give (also with great enthusiasm) a course of analysis, On his arrival Privalov became the oldest scientific worker at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics at Moscow University.
- Privalov was my opponent for my final Ph.D. thesis.
- The rooms were joined by a number of doors and, according to his friends, Privalov loved to walk to and fro over the whole flat.
- It was comfortable at the Privalovs (in contrast to the majority of mathematicians' flats at the time, to say nothing of the bachelors' rooms).
- Privalov was a sociable man, he liked people to come to him, he would meet his guests with a smile, and show them into his study, opening the door with a sweeping gesture.
- Privalov often accompanied his guests, not only to the tram, but sometimes to their homes.
- Privalov regularly lectured to the Moscow Mathematical Society following his appointment in 1922.
- Privalov was appointed secretary of the Moscow Mathematical Society and later served as a vice-president.
- Later Privalov kept up friendly relations with his former pupils, especially M A Kreines and S A Galpern.
- In the thirties, after a session of the Mathematical Society or a long seminar conducted by Privalov on the theory of functions, the mathematicians would gather in a small restaurant at the end of Tverskoi; Privalov was invariably present, sitting with a glass of brandy, and interjecting brief remarks into the excited mathematical conversation.
- Privalov, often in collaboration with Luzin, studied analytic functions in the vicinity of singular points by means of measure theory and Lebesgue integrals.
- Privalov never studied a particular problem for the sake of the problem itself.
- Very characteristic of Privalov, in this connection, is the theory of subharmonic functions, which he created and in which he tried to combine, improve and deepen the most important methods of the theory of functions of a complex variable.
- Privalov wrote a number of research monographs, some of which we have already mentioned above.
- It was not only as a researcher that Privalov excelled for he also had an outstanding reputation as a teacher.
- A 13th edition was published in 1966, twenty-five years after Privalov's death.
Born 13 February 1891, Nizhny Lomov, Penza guberniya (now oblast), Russia. Died 13 July 1941, Moscow, USSR.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Russia
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
-
- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
