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Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch
Times obituary
Mathematics at Cambridge
Professor Abram Besicovitch, F.R.S., Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1950 until 1958, and a Fellow of Trinity College, died on Tuesday. He was 79.
Abram Samoilvitch Besicovitch was born in 1891 and studied at the University of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), afterwards teaching there and at the University of Perm. He left the USSR in 1925 and, with the support of a Rockefeller Fellowship, worked with Harald Bohr in Copenhagen collaborating in the study of almost-periodic functions. He then spent some months in Oxford with G. H. Hardy, who recognized his outstanding gifts and secured for him a lectureship at the University of Liverpool. He quickly moved to Cambridge as a University Lecturer and was elected a Fellow of Trinity in 1930.
In 1950 he was elected to the Rouse Ball Chair, succeeding J. E. Littlewood, who was the first holder. After his retirement from the Rouse Ball Chair in 1958, Besicovitch remained active in teaching and research and spent eight successive years as a visiting professor at several American universities. His health then began to fail, and he returned to live in Trinity.
Besicovitch spoke tolerably good English in his first years in Britain in the 1920s, but, perhaps on account of his marriage in 1928 to a Russian wife, his English remained that of a Russian. The definite article was superfluous for him, as in his dictum "mathematician reputation rests on the number of his bad proofs," expressing the truth that pioneer work is likely to be rough, and the polish follows later. He was an enthusiastic teacher of both graduates and undergraduates, and was a "character," particularly in his later years, winning the affection of both mathematicians and a wider circle.
He was one of the most powerful pure mathematicians of his generation and solved problems of great difficulty. The difficulty often lay in the truth being paradoxical (as in Kakeya's problem) and having eluded the scrutiny of a long line of mathematicians with less than Besicovitch's insight. He was awarded the Adams Prize (1930) and the De Morgan and Sylvester Medals.
Mathematics at Cambridge
Professor Abram Besicovitch, F.R.S., Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1950 until 1958, and a Fellow of Trinity College, died on Tuesday. He was 79.
Abram Samoilvitch Besicovitch was born in 1891 and studied at the University of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), afterwards teaching there and at the University of Perm. He left the USSR in 1925 and, with the support of a Rockefeller Fellowship, worked with Harald Bohr in Copenhagen collaborating in the study of almost-periodic functions. He then spent some months in Oxford with G. H. Hardy, who recognized his outstanding gifts and secured for him a lectureship at the University of Liverpool. He quickly moved to Cambridge as a University Lecturer and was elected a Fellow of Trinity in 1930.
In 1950 he was elected to the Rouse Ball Chair, succeeding J. E. Littlewood, who was the first holder. After his retirement from the Rouse Ball Chair in 1958, Besicovitch remained active in teaching and research and spent eight successive years as a visiting professor at several American universities. His health then began to fail, and he returned to live in Trinity.
Besicovitch spoke tolerably good English in his first years in Britain in the 1920s, but, perhaps on account of his marriage in 1928 to a Russian wife, his English remained that of a Russian. The definite article was superfluous for him, as in his dictum "mathematician reputation rests on the number of his bad proofs," expressing the truth that pioneer work is likely to be rough, and the polish follows later. He was an enthusiastic teacher of both graduates and undergraduates, and was a "character," particularly in his later years, winning the affection of both mathematicians and a wider circle.
He was one of the most powerful pure mathematicians of his generation and solved problems of great difficulty. The difficulty often lay in the truth being paradoxical (as in Kakeya's problem) and having eluded the scrutiny of a long line of mathematicians with less than Besicovitch's insight. He was awarded the Adams Prize (1930) and the De Morgan and Sylvester Medals.
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