 | | Journal of Applied
Mathematics and Mechanics
Russian Academy of Sciences | | Founded
in January 1936
(Translated from 1958)
Issued 6 times a year
ISSN 0021-8928
(print version) |
Archive of Issues
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| In Russian (ĎĚĚ): | | 9723
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| "In Memory of Lev Vasil’evich Ovsyannikov: (22.04.1919 - 23.05.2014)," J. Appl. Math. Mech. 78 (5), 538-539 (2014) |
| Year |
2014 |
Volume |
78 |
Issue |
5 |
Pages |
538-539 |
| Title |
In Memory of Lev Vasil’evich Ovsyannikov: (22.04.1919 - 23.05.2014) |
| Author(s) |
|
| Abstract |
Russian and world science has suffered a heavy loss. Lev Vasil’evich Ovsyannikov, a member of the Editorial Board of our journal for more than 35 years, has passed away. He was a scholar of enormous stature. Basic ideas in a number of scientific fields (gas dynamics, group analysis of differential equations, the theory of surface and internal waves, and non-linear functional analysis) belong to him, and, in each of these fields, he obtained world-class results that, to a large extent, have determined the development of these scientific topics.
His long life included studies at Moscow State University (1936-1941) and at the A. F. Mozhaiskii Leningrad Air-Force Engineering Academy (1941-1945), participation in operations on the Leningrad front (1944), work on the design of a nuclear charge for an artillery shell in the collective directed by Academician M. A. Lavrent’ev (1953-1956) and teaching at the Moscow Physics-Technical Institute of Physics and Technology during its heyday (1956-1959).
In 1959, he threw in his lot with the Institute of Hydrodynamics of the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where he became one of the closest comrades-in-arms of M. A. Lavrent’ev and his successor in the post of director of the Institute (1976-1986). Direction of his Institute did not interrupt his active scientific Research. In fact, his renowned books "Group Analysis of Differential Equations" and "Lectures on the Principles of Gas Dynamics" were published during those years.
He founded an outstanding scientific school that included four corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 10 doctors and more than 20 holders of first higher degrees in science. Many generations of scholars, having heard his lectures, worked in his seminars and studied his papers, monographs and textbooks, can by right be numbered among the school he founded, that had now extended beyond the borders of Russia.
The following example characterizes the way in which he worked as a supervisor of studies. He once set a problem on the so-called canonical form of a class of submodels of gas dynamics. This problem was solved in two special cases by his pupils. He then waited until their papers had been accepted for publication in order to cite them and meanwhile gave a general solution of the problem. It took up 52 pages. He did not attempt to use his authority to "force through" the publication of the manuscript in some journal but published it in the form of a preprint of the M. A. Lavrent’ev Institute of Hydrodynamics.
He devoted his many strengths and mental energy to work in the Novosibirsk State University, being one of the first of its lecturers, head of the Department of Hydrodynamics (1966-1989) and dean of the faculty of the mechanics and mathematics (1967-1970). He developed and presented a course on mathematics for the participants in the first, in the USSR, Novosibirsk School of Physics and Mathematics.
He was editor-in-chief of the journal "Applied Mechanics and Technical Physics" (1965-1987), a member of the Editorial Board of the journals "Applied Mathematics and Mechanics" and "The Physics of Combustion and Explosion", and he carried out an enormous amount of work on the publication of the selected papers of M. A. Lavrent’ev on mathematics and mechanics.
He published more than a hundred scientific papers, among which only five were written with coauthors. He is the author of ten monographs and school textbooks and a coauthor of two collective monographs. Creative activity did not desert him until the very last years of his life. His paper "The Cauchy problem on a Banach space scale" (Trudy MIAN 2013;281:7-15) serves to confirm this.
The history of the writing of the collective monograph "Non-linear Problems in the Theory of Surface and Internal Waves" (1985) is remarkable. In the middle of the 1960s, the theory of the steady motions of a liquid with a free boundary was quite well developed, but there were no results using the non-linear theory of unsteady motions and, in particular, waves on water, on account of the lack of adequate mathematical apparatus. Such an apparatus was developed by him and his pupils. He subsequently organized a special seminar at Novosibirsk State University on problems of surface and internal waves and, during the work of this seminar, a group of authors consisting of eight people was formed and each of them wrote his own chapter for the monograph.
His scientific achievements were reflected in detail in the article dedicated to his 90th birthday, published in this journal (J Appl Math Mech 2009;73(3):245-248). He himself, appraising his own creative work, chose the new fundamental concepts he introduced such as the partially invariant solution of a system of differential equations and a quasidifferential operator on a Banach space scale.
He possessed remarkable human qualities. In spite of numerous awards, he remained accessible to people of different ages. In his seminars, both Academicians as well as post-graduate students could be seen as the speakers. His respect for the person speaking and his desire to help understand the problem in detail and to have in view ways for developing the results obtained remained unchanged.
He was never formally concerned with any business. In particular, as the supervisor of many scientific forums, he endeavoured to listen to all the papers included in their programme. The All-Russia Conference "New Mathematical Models in the Mechanics of Continuous Media: Construction and Study", timed to coincide with his 95th birthday, was a real occasion for celebration for many of his pupils and colleagues, and the possibility of meeting Academician Ovsyannikov in person inspired and encouraged the speakers.
His selfless work was widely appreciated and rewarded. He was awarded the Order of the October Revolution, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order "For Service to the Fatherland" of the IV-th degree and nine medals including "For Victory over Germany" and "For Battle Service". The Lenin prize and State prize of the USSR, the M. A. Lavrent’ev gold medal, the prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the L. I. Sedov prize of the Russian National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics with a medal were awarded to him. He was the first prize-winner of the M. A. Lavrent’ev Prize of the M. A. Lavrent’ev Foundation. It is symbolic that his grave in the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok cemetery is located next to the grave of Mikhail Alekseyevich Lavrent’ev. |
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