— My parents—I was very lucky with them—used to subscribe me to several magazines. One of them was Knowledge Is Power. Once, while I was still in secondary school, I read an article about mathematics in it. And there was a phrase that I remember to this day: ‘The peaks of mathematics are beautiful, and it is a pity that so few people can admire them.’ I wanted to admire them—and yes, I can confirm: they are beautiful.
— What qualities does one need to become a good mathematician?
You know, vivid mathematics mathematics is
fortunately, a gift—and it tends to show itself early. Or it does not. In other words, a person realises while still at school whether mathematics hungary phone number library is for them or not. Already by the time I was in upper secondary school, I could not imagine doing anything else with my life.
— Which of your scientific achievements do you consider the most significant?
— Let me start from afar. are platforms better than social media ads There was a scientist, Andrey Kolmogorov—the most prominent Soviet mathematician. He was an absolutely extraordinary person who made a tremendous contribution to mathematics. Among other things, he was a founding figure of KAM theory. That is an acronym formed from the initials of the three authors: Kolmogorov, Arnold, and Moser.
Now let us try to understand
what KAM theory is. Take the Solar System, for example. Usually, we consider the five major planets from Venus to Saturn. We know that each planet orbits in an ellipse—according to Kepler’s laws.
That is because the Sun attracts them. But in addition, the planets interact with each other. As a result, their Keplerian motion gradually becomes distorted. There is a relatively simple equation that describes how a planet interacts with the Sun. But when we account for the interactions between the planets themselves, small perturbations are added to this basic equation. Because of these interactions, the planets’ orbits slowly begin to deform.
The question, posed as far back as america email by Isaac Newton, is: what will happen to these ellipses in, say, a million years? Either an orbit might break apart, causing a planet to fly off into deep space. Or the ellipse might become so elongated that the planet falls into the Sun and burns up. Or two planetary orbits might intersect, leading to a collision. Not within the next ten thousand years, of course—but still, it is a valid concern. This was an outstanding and fascinating problem—and it was solved using the KAM theory.