Uspensky, Vladimir Andreevich

Born in the family of playwright Andrei Vasilyevich Uspensky (1902-1978) ^{[1] [2]} . Vladimir Andreevich Uspensky said that he had become a mathematician due to historical misunderstanding, since his family had no prerequisites for this. However, in the Soviet Union, mathematics was developed in much the same way as chess, and in both disciplines the USSR was the leader in the world. They were free from ideology ^[3] . Vladimir Andreevich was interested in mathematics in his school years, while evacuating to Novosibirsk, he went to a second-hand bookstore and bought books on higher mathematics, choosing names by their beauty. The family returned from evacuation in November 1943, and the thirteen-year-old Vladimir became a member of the mathematical circles at Moscow State University and the Moscow Mathematical Olympiads. In the eighth grade, he received the first prize at the Moscow Mathematical Olympiad for schoolchildren and the recommendation of his supervisor, then graduate student of Moscow State University Yevgeny Borisovich Dynkin for admission to the university.

Founder of Mathematical Linguistics

In 1947, having graduated from school with a gold medal, Ouspensky entered the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University . While still a third year student, together with Ye. B. Dynkin, he wrote a book based on the results of his school circle, which was called “Mathematical Conversations”. The book was published in 1952 by the Gostekhizdat Publishing House, through which all serious mathematical literature went. In 2004, the second edition was published ^[3] .

Dynkin recommended the Assumption to the luminary of the Soviet mathematical school A.N. Kolmogorov . In the third year, Vladimir enrolled in an academician for a special course on measure theory and once, refuting the academician’s judgment that there cannot be such an immeasurable set that, when turning a circle, it can be combined with its complement, in January 1950 he became his student ^[3] .

He began to engage in the unfashionable and somewhat philosophical topic of mathematical logic, taking as a basis the works of A. N. Kolmogorov on the mathematical logic of 1925 and 1932 and on set theory of 1928. Subsequently, this topic became very necessary, as it turned out to be related to computer science .

In September 1950, he met a fifth-year student of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, later an academician of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov , who came to realize with him that there are aspects of exact sciences in linguistics. This was the impetus for the creation of a seminar on mathematical linguistics .

In 1952, Ouspensky graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University with honors and was invited to graduate school. Under the leadership of academician Kolmogorov, he defended his thesis (1955), the theme of which was computable operations on enumerable sets.

He worked as an assistant at a mechmath and in the spring of 1956, together with Ivanov, then also an assistant at the Faculty of Philology, opened a planned seminar on mathematical linguistics at the Faculty of Philology. But, since this term was still "bourgeois", the seminar was called "Some applications of mathematical methods in linguistics." The first lesson took place on September 24, 1956. The formal leader of the seminar was a friend of A.N. Kolmogorov, professor of the Faculty of Philology Peter Savvich Kuznetsov (1899-1968).

In 1958, Ivanov was fired from Moscow State University for open support for the poet Boris Pasternak, who had been persecuted, and the seminar stopped for a year, while specialist in the history of linguistics Vladimir Andreevich Zvegintsev , who worked at the department of general and comparative historical linguistics of the philological faculty, did not want to stand out and create how own department of structural and applied linguistics, as well as the corresponding specialization of students with the teaching of mathematics. So at the philological department there was a department of structural and applied linguistics (OSIPL), which was strongly out of the picture.

In May 1959, at a meeting with the rector of Moscow State University, Ivan Petrovsky, Ouspensky said that it was necessary to create a department not of structural and applied linguistics, but simply linguistics, since in fact the linguistic and literary directions were mixed at the philological department. However, linguists opposed separation from literary scholars, and then Uspensky proposed a terminological trick: to open a department of theoretical and applied linguistics , OTIPL. The idea was supported by Petrovsky, and in 1960 the first student enrollment took place in this department. 13 people were accepted, five completed the course. Zvegintsev tried to rename OTIPL to OSIPL, which happened in 1962. And only thirty years later, both the department and the department received the real names that they have today - “theoretical and applied linguistics”.

Theorist and teacher

Ouspensky became an assistant professor, and since 1966 he received the post of professor at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University.

From 1993 to the end of his life, he headed the Department of Mathematical Logic and Theory of Algorithms of the Mechanics and Mechanics Department of Moscow State University. He also taught at the Department of Structural Linguistics (now the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics ), Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University.

In September 2003, at the initiative of the then student Denis Paperno Uspensky, he resumed at the philological faculty a seminar on mathematical linguistics together with Mati Rainovich Pentus and a linguist Peter Mikhailovich Arkadyev ^[4] .

In 2006-2013, he was a teacher at the Summer Linguistic Schools ^[5] .

Author of many books and over 100 scientific papers. Prepared 25 candidates and 4 doctors of sciences. Ouspensky’s literary and cultural works were published in the journals New Literary Review, Untouchable Reserve, New World, Banner, and Literature Issues.

For the book “ Apology of Mathematics ” ^{[6] [7]} received the main prize of the Enlightener Prize on November 18, 2010 in the field of natural and exact sciences ^{[8] [9]} . This book is a collection of articles by a scientist for the years 1965-2009 ^[3] .

At Moscow University, V. A. Uspensky gave lecture courses:

• "Introduction to Mathematical Logic",
• Computable Functions
• Gödel’s completeness theorem,
• "The language of mathematics",
• "Axiomatic method" and others.

V. A. Uspensky in his articles, essays and interviews argued that mathematics is close to humanitarian knowledge ^{[10] [11] [9]} . The scientist, by his own admission, was surprised that his articles “Apology of Mathematics, or On Mathematics as a Part of Spiritual Culture” and “Humanitarian and Mathematical: Overcoming the Barrier” were published in the literary magazines “ New World ” and “ Banner ” ^{[12] [13] [14] [15]} . This confirmed his version of the right of mathematics to a place in public consciousness and in spiritual culture - he considered it important to at least hint that mathematics helps to better understand the structure of the world around us ^[3] .

“The main goal of teaching humanities mathematics is psychological. This goal consists not so much in communicating knowledge and not so much in teaching the method as in expanding the psychology of the student, instilling in him a strict discipline of thinking. In addition to the discipline of thinking, I would mention three more important skills, the development of which should be facilitated by mathematical studies. The first is the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood; the second is the ability to distinguish meaning from nonsense; the third is the ability to distinguish the intelligible from the incomprehensible. " ^[3]

The first five parodies (in the style of Homer , Kozma Prutkov , Balmont , Vertinsky and Mayakovsky ) on the plot of the fairy tale "The Ryaba Hen " Ouspensky wrote in the summer of 1945, immediately after the seven-year period. The first four poems are complete, and the fifth with bills was published 20 years later in the book of V. I. Glotser “Children write poetry” (Moscow: Education, 1964). Three poems were partially sounded in the film “ When I Become a Giant ” from the lips of the hero Mikhail Efremov (according to the plot of the film, he wrote these poems and told them at a literature lesson, reflecting on the theme of artistic features ).

• Wife - art critic Svetlana Markovna Uspenskaya (October 6, 1930 - November 15, 1980) ^[10] .
  • Son - Vladimir Vladimirovich Uspensky (born 1959 ^[11] ).
• The younger brother is philologist Boris Andreevich Uspensky (born 1937).
  • Nephew - linguist Fyodor Uspensky (born 1970).

He lived on Krasnoarmeyskaya street , house 25.

• E. B. Dynkin , V. A. Uspensky. Mathematical conversations. - M .; L .: Gostekhizdat, 1952.- 288 p. [Translated into German: EB Dynkin, WA Uspenski. Mathematische Unterhaltungen. - K-oln: Aulis Verlag Deubner & Co KG, 1979.- 272 S .; The second section of the book is translated into English: EB Dynkin, VA Uspenskii. Problems in the Theory of Numbers. - Boston: DC Heath and Company, 1963. - 117 p.]
• V. A. Uspensky. Some applications of mechanics to mathematics. - M .: Fizmatgiz, 1958.- 48 p. [Translated into English: VA Uspenskii. Some applications of mechanics to mathematics. - Oxford ea: Pergamon Press, 1961. - 58 p.]
• V. A. Uspensky. Lectures on computable functions. - M .: Fizmatgiz, 1960 .-- 492 p. [Translated into French: VA Ouspenski. Leçons sur les fonctions calculables. - Paris: Hermann, 1966. - 412 p.]
• V. A. Uspensky. Pascal's Triangle . - Ed. 2nd, supplemented. - M .: Fizmatlit, 1979.- 48 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. Gödel's incompleteness theorem . - M .: Fizmatlit, 1982. - 111 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. Post Machine . - Ed. 2nd, revised. - M .: Fizmatlit, 1988 .-- 96 s.
• V. A. Uspensky. Non-standard, or non-Archimedean, analysis. - M.: “Knowledge”, 1983. - 61 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. What is custom analysis ? - M .: Fizmatlit, 1987 .-- 128 p.
• V. A. Uspensky, A. L. Semenov . Algorithm Theory : Key Discoveries and Applications. - M .: Fizmatlit, 1987 .-- 288 p. [Translated into English: Vladimir Uspensky, Alexei Semenov. Algorithms: Main Ideas and Applications.— Dordrecht ea: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993. - 269 p.]
• V.A. Uspensky, N.K. Vereshchagin, V.E. Plisko. Introductory course in mathematical logic. - M.: Publishing house of Moscow University, 1991. - 136 p. [Reprinted in 1997]
• V. A. Uspensky. What is the axiomatic method ? - Ed. 2nd, corrected. - Izhevsk: Scientific and Publishing Center "Regular and Chaotic Dynamics", 2001. - 95 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. Transactionses on nemathematics. With the appendix of the semiotic messages of A. N. Kolmogorov to the author and his friends. In 2 volumes - M .: OGI, 2002. - Volume 1, 584 p .; Volume 2, 824 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. The simplest examples of mathematical evidence. M .: Publishing house of the Moscow Center for Continuous Mat. Education, 2009. - 52 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. Apology of mathematics. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2009 .-- 552 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. Four algorithmic faces of chance (Summer School "Contemporary Mathematics", Dubna, July 2005.) - 2nd ed., Rev. M.: Publishing House of the Center, 2009. - 45 p.
• N.K. Vereshchagin, V.A. Uspensky, A. Shen. Kolmogorov complexity and algorithmic randomness. - M.: Publishing House of the Center, 2013. - 575 p.
• V. A. Uspensky. Transactionses on nemathematics. - Ed. 2nd, rev. and add. In 5 kn. - M.: OGI, 2013—.
• V. A. Uspensky. Preface to mathematics. St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2015 .-- 473 p.

• Page V. A. Uspensky on the department website.
• V. A. Uspensky. Works on nemathematics (with the appendix of the semiotic messages of A. N. Kolmogorov to the author and his friends). M .: OGI, 2002, v. I — II. ISBN 5-94282-087-2 (t. 1), ISBN 5-94282-088-0 (t. 2)
• Publications in the Journal Hall
• Publications in the Russian Journal
• Chapter from the book “Apology of Mathematics”
• V. A. Uspensky. Seven reflections on the topics of the philosophy of mathematics // "Patterns of the development of modern mathematics." M. Science, 1987
• Vladimir Uspensky. Lecture "On mathematics as part of culture and the Poincaré problem" on the website of the Enlightener Prize
• Interview with Vladimir Uspensky // Poster , April 27, 2012.