Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin

For other persons named Vladimir Rokhlin, see Vladimir Rokhlin (disambiguation).

Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin (Russian: Владимир Абрамович Рохлин) (August 23, 1919 - December 3, 1984) was one of the leading mathematicians of the USSR, working in the fields of topology, geometry and ergodic theory. He was born to a Jewish family in Baku. He entered Moscow State University in 1935. His advisors were A.N. Kolmogorov and L.S. Pontryagin.

He volunteered for the army in 1941, leading to years as a prisoner of a German war camp, and then two years in a Soviet camp after the end of the war. He then returned to mathematics. His result of 1952 on the signature of 4-manifolds received a great deal of attention, and was generalised by Hirzebruch. He also worked in the theory of characteristic classes, homotopy theory and cobordism theory. He also contributed to real algebraic geometry.

Since 1959 he was at Leningrad State University, where he was a very influential teacher. His students include Mikhail Gromov and Anatoly Vershik.

[edit] Family

Vladimir Rokhlin is Rokhlin's son. He is a professor of computer science, mathematics, and physics at Yale University, a winner of the Steele Prize for a seminal contribution to research, a member of both the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the IEEE.

Roklin's uncle was Korney Chukovsky, a well known Russian poet, most famous for his popular children's book.