Olga Ladyzhenskaya

Olga Aleksándrovna Ladýzhenskaya (Russian: Óльга Алексáндровн Лады́женская) (Kologriv, Russian SFSR, March 7, 1922 - Saint Petersburg, Russia, January 12, 2004) was a well-known Russian mathematician. for his work on partial differential equations (especially on Hilbert's nineteenth problem) and fluid dynamics.

Biography

Ladýzhenskaya was born in 1922 in Kologriv, Kostroma Governorate, where her father, Aleksandr Ivanovich Ladýzhensky, was a mathematics teacher. Belonging to a family of rural lower nobility, Aleksandr Ladýzhensky was deported and arrested by Stalin's regime in 1937; In a summary trial, he was declared an "enemy of the people" and sentenced to death. Olga's two sisters were expelled from school, but Olga was allowed to finish her studies.

Despite this, Olga had trouble continuing her education, as she was the daughter of an "enemy of the people." In 1939, she had obtained excellent results in the entrance examinations at the University of Leningrad; however, she was not admitted. After a brief period at the Leningrad Normal School (1939-1941), she returned to her hometown, where she taught mathematics at the same school where her father had taught. Finally admitted in 1943 to the University of Moscow, thanks to the personal intervention of the mother of a student, she began her mathematics studies. In 1947 she married Andrei Alekséevich Kiseliov, a mathematician and historian of mathematics, and also a professor at the University of Leningrad.

In 1951 he had completed his thesis; however, she could not defend it until after Stalin's death, in 1953. Finally, in 1954 she was appointed full professor at the University of Leningrad and in 1961, director of the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics of the Saint Petersburg Department of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics. She was also president of the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He maintained a close friendship with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and with the poet Anna Akhmatova, which led to enmity with the Soviet authorities.

Fields of work and contributions

Olga Ladýzhenskaya wrote more than 250 works on mathematics. Her work covers a wide spectrum of topics, from partial differential equations, through hyperbolic equations, to differential equations generated by symmetric functions of Hessian eigenvalues (eigenvalues). She was also interested in the uniqueness in the convergence of Fourier series, or solutions using the finite difference approximation. She developed the functional-analytic treatment of stationary nonlinear problems using the Leray-Schauder theory of degrees (it: Teorema di Leray-Schauder).

His studies on differential equations and Navier-Stokes equations have greatly contributed to the development of research in other scientific fields, including weather forecasting, aerodynamics, oceanography and cardiovascular medicine.

Works of his authorship

• Ladyzhenskaya, O. A. (1969) [1963], The Mathematical Theory of Viscous Incompressible Flow, Mathematics and Its Applications 2 (Revised Second Edition), New York–London–Paris–Montreux–Tokyo–Melbourne: Gordon and Breach, pp. XVIII+224, MR 0254401, Zbl 0184.52603..
• Ladyženskaja, O. A.; Solonnikov, V. A.; Ural'ceva, N. (1968), Linear and quasi-linear equations of parabolic type, Translations of Mathematical Monographs 23, Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society, pp. XI+648, MR 0241821, Zbl 0174.15403..
• Ladyzhenskaya, Olga A.; Ural'tseva, Nina N. (1968), Linear and Quasilinear Elliptic Equations, Mathematics in Science and Engineering 46, New York and London: Academic Press, pp. XVIII+495, MR 0244627, Zbl 0164.13002..
• Ladyzhenskaya, O. A. (1985), The Boundary Value Problems of Mathematical Physics, Applied Mathematical Sciences 49, Berlin–Heidelberg–New York: Springer Verlag, pp. XXX+322, ISBN 0-521-39922-X, MR 0793735, Zbl 0588.35003. (Translated by Jack Lohwater).
• Ladyzhenskaya, O. A. (1991), Attractors for Semigroups and Evolution Equations, Lezioni Lincee, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. xi+73, MR 1133627, Zbl 0755.47049.