Google Celebrates Olga Ladyzhenskaya

 Yesterday, Google celebrated Olga Ladyzhenskaya, a Russian Mathematician.  She was born in the 20th century and died in the 21st  but she had an impact on the subject.

Olga was born on March 7, 1922, in a small village in western Russia.  She developed a love of math due to her father who shared his love with her.  He taught mathematics.

Unfortunately he passed in 1937 when the Soviet government declared him an enemy of the state, arrested, and killed him.  In 1939, when she graduated from our equivalent of high school with honors, she applied to Leningrad University.


Due to her father, they denied her so she applied to Pokrovski Teacher's Training College before taking over her father's job teaching math.   Supposedly, she talked her way into the teachers college before her application papers could be transferred from Leningrad University.  From the information, I've found, she appears to have been admitted into Moscow State University in 1943.  Although she married another mathematician in the 1940's the marriage did not last long because he wanted children and she preferred devoting herself to her work so they parted ways.


Once World War II ended, she was able to transfer to Leningrad University obtaining a Master's degree before earning her first PhD.  At this point, she transferred back to Moscow State University where she earned her second PhD in 1953. Upon earning her second PhD, she got a job at the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow in 1954.

Eventually, she lead the laboratory and while there, she wrote over 250 papers.  Her mathematical works influenced weather forecasting by refining equations used to describe cloud motion and weather patterns, aerodynamics, and equations used to describe the motion of blood in cardiovascular science.  She is best known for her work on the Navier - Stokes equations which mathematically describe the motion of viscous substances.

In 1956, the Soviet government officially exonerated her father due to a lack of concrete evidence of the crime.  Unfortunately, this made it so she could not easily travel outside of the Soviet Union.  She only every made two trips out.  The first in 1958 to attend the International Congress of Mathematics and again in 1988.  Once Communism fell, she began traveling more.

During her lifetime, she wrote multiple books, and was always a leader in partial differential equations and mathematical physics.  Its amazing that her work is still influencing areas today.  One really interesting thing is that she suffered from an eye problem that required her to use special pencils.

Due to her work on that and differential equations, she received the Lomonosov Gold Medal in 2002 after she'd been denied the Fields Medal in 1958. The first women to win the Fields Medal, did so in 2014.  Olga died two years later at the age of 81, on January 14, 2004 just before she was scheduled to depart for Florida where she planned to finish a paper.  At the time of her death, she had five years of research she wanted to work on.

Let me know what yo think, I'd love other.  Have a great day.