Leonid Vital'evich Kantorovich (on the 100th anniversary of his birth)

Abstract

The 19th of January 2012 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonid Vital'evich Kantorovich, an outstanding mathematician and economist of international fame. A child prodigy, who graduated from the university at 18 and became a professor at 20, an academician in the mathematical sciences and a laureate of the Nobel Prize in economics,-these are extraordinary circumstances of his life. They are remarkable in themselves, but also the results he achieved were exceptional and immensely impressive, and the younger generations of researchers, first and foremost mathematicians and economists, must know about them. He was born in St. Petersburg, in the family of a venereologist on 19 January 1912 (6 January of the Julian calendar). The boy's talents became obvious very early. Already in 1926, at the age of 14, he enrolled in Leningrad State University. Soon he began meeting with a student study group organized by G. M. Fichtenholz and then attending a seminar on the descriptive theory of functions. During his first years at the university he joined a circle of students who became his closest friends: D. K. Faddeev, I. P. Natanson, S. L. Sobolev, and S. G. Mikhlin also were in Fichtenholz's study group, and Kantorovich maintained his friendship with them for his whole life. V. I. Smirnov, the patriarch of St. Petersburg/Leningrad mathematics, a living symbol of the continuing tradition between the old and new mathematical schools in the city, took notice of the student Kantorovich and in the years to come supported him in all his initiatives. After graduating from Leningrad State University in 1930, Kantorovich taught at several institutes of higher learning in Leningrad and at the same time was very actively involved in research. Already in 1932 he became a professor at the Leningrad Institute for Industrial Construction Engineering and a docent at the university. From 1934 he was a professor at the university.

Kantorovich problem of optimal transportation of measures: new directions of research

“…However, in some important cases the proofs are also included; this concerns especially assertions that appeared in original works in some special situations, for example, for metric spaces, but that are also valid for general completely regular spaces. Some information about Kantorovich's life and work can be found in the materials published for the centennial of his birth (see [85], [124]- [126], and also [9]).…”

The Monge - Kantorovich problem: achievements, connections, and perspectives

“…Цель нашего обзора -рассказать о современном состоянии исследований, идейно связанных как с работой [1], так и со значительно более старой задачей Г. Монжа [6], о которой Л. В. Канторович узнал уже после выхода [1] (см. [2]); интересные материалы биографического характера собраны в [7], [8], а в юбилейный год можно ожидать и новых публикаций.…”