Gelfand, Izrail Moisevich

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GELFAND, IZRAIL MOISEVICH

GELFAND, IZRAIL MOISEVICH (1913– ), Russian mathematician. Gelfand was born in Krasnye Okny (now Moldova) and obtained his Ph.D. at Moscow University (1938), where he was professor at the Academy of Sciences Institute of Mathematics from 1943. He worked mainly in Banach algebra, the representation theory of Lie groups related to quantum mechanics, and in solving the algebraic problems of mathematics applied to physics, subjects on which he published for over 60 years. His many honors include the Wolf Prize (1978) and election to the Russian National Academy of Sciences, the U.S National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of London.

[Michael Denman (2nd ed.)]

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