I M Gelfand 1913–2009

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Nov 10th 2009, 06:32 AM
Opalg

I M Gelfand 1913–2009

Yesterday's Guardian has a whole-page obituary of Israel Gelfand, who died last month.

Israel Gelfand obituary | Science | The Guardian

Gelfand and his collaborator Mark Naimark, along with John von Neumann, were the founders of the theory of operator algebras (of which my username is an abbreviation). This has developed into one of the more active strands of mathematical research in the past half century, with important applications in noncommutative geometry, knot theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and the representation theory of topological groups.

I met Gelfand a few years ago, at the International Congress of Mathematics. His mind was as sharp as ever, although by then he was well into his nineties. He was eagerly listening to young mathematicians explaining their work to him, and giving them ideas and advice.
Nov 10th 2009, 12:37 PM
Drexel28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Opalg

Yesterday's Guardian has a whole-page obituary of Israel Gelfand, who died last month.

Israel Gelfand obituary | Science | The Guardian

Gelfand and his collaborator Mark Naimark, along with John von Neumann, were the founders of the theory of operator algebras (of which my username is an abbreviation). This has developed into one of the more active strands of mathematical research in the past half century, with important applications in noncommutative geometry, knot theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and the representation theory of topological groups.

I met Gelfand a few years ago, at the International Congress of Mathematics. His mind was as sharp as ever, although by then he was well into his nineties. He was eagerly listening to young mathematicians explaining their work to him, and giving them ideas and advice.

$e^{\pi}$ ?
Nov 10th 2009, 01:04 PM
Opalg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drexel28

$e^{\pi}$ ?

No, $e^\pi$ is associated with Alexander Gelfond, a different mathematician. Gelfond died in 1968.
Nov 10th 2009, 01:09 PM
Drexel28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Opalg

No, $e^\pi$ is associated with Alexander Gelfond, a different mathematician. Gelfond died in 1968.

I'm sorry. My mistake.
Dec 10th 2009, 07:09 AM
Focus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Opalg

I met Gelfand a few years ago, at the International Congress of Mathematics. His mind was as sharp as ever, although by then he was well into his nineties. He was eagerly listening to young mathematicians explaining their work to him, and giving them ideas and advice.

I am always jealous when people say these sorts of things.
Dec 21st 2009, 06:07 AM
arbolis

A sad news.
I first thought you were talking about Boris Gelfand (The chess games of Boris Gelfand), from Israel. Also the I M in the title reminded me of International Master, although Gelfand is a GM.
Apr 1st 2010, 07:28 PM
Drexel28

I know this is an obscene amount of time later, but I would like to comment that know that I am slightly wiser I appreciate Gelfand for the kind of mathematician he was. I mean, everything has his name attached. Non Comm Geo, $x\mapsto\hat{x}$ , and he even authored the book I'm using on calc of variations. Profound man to say the least.
Apr 1st 2010, 08:04 PM
NonCommAlg

there's a very important concept in dimension theory of (non)commuative algebras called GK-dimension. the G stands for Gelfand and the K for one of his students, i.e. Kirillov.
Aug 14th 2012, 02:25 AM
DIOGYK

Re: I M Gelfand 1913–2009

It's so sad, I'm reading his book on algebra now and he is awesome teacher.