Vladimir Grigorevich Boltyansky (Russian: Влади́мир Григо́рьевич Болтя́нский; born 26 April 1925 in Moscow), also transliterated as Boltyanski, Boltyanskii, or Boltjansky, is a Soviet and Russian mathematician, educator and author of popular mathematical books and articles. He is best known for his books on topology, combinatorial geometry and Hilbert's third problem.
Boltyansky was born to Jewish parents in Moscow.[1] He served in the Soviet army during the World War II, when he was a signaller on the 2nd Belorussian Front.[2] He graduated from Moscow University in 1948, where his advisor was Lev Pontryagin. He defended his "Doktor nauk in physics and mathematics" (higher doctorate) degree in 1955, became a professor in 1959.
Boltyansky was awarded the Lenin Prize (for the work led by Pontryagin, Gamkrelidze, and Mishchenko) for applications of differential equations to optimal control. In 1967 he received Uzbek SSR prize for the work on ordered rings. He currently teaches at CIMAT.
He is the corresponding member of Russian Academy of Pedagogy. He is the author of over 200 books and mathematical articles.