Alexei Krylov
Encyclopedia
Aleksey Nikolaevich Krylov ( – October 26, 1945) was a Russia
n naval
engineer
, applied mathematician
and memoir
ist.
officer in a village Akhmatovo near town Alatyr of the Simbirsk Gubernia in Russia. Nikolay Krylov's parents were rather poor, but he received a free education as the son of an army veteran.
Krylov entered a Naval College (Морское училище) in 1878 and finished with distinction in 1884. There he did his first scientific work with Ivan de Collong
about Deviation
of magnetic compass
es. The theory of magnetic and gyro-compasses fascinated him all his life; he later published important works related to the dynamics of the magnetic compass and proposed the dromoscope, a device that would automatically calculate the deviation of a compass. He also was a pioneer of the gyrocompass
, being the first to create a full theory of it.
After spending several years at the Main Hydrographic Administration and at a shipbuilding plant (French-Russian shipbuilding company), in 1888 he continued his study in the Naval Academy
of Saint Petersburg
. He was a talented and promising student and after graduating ahead-of-schedule from the Academy in 1890, stayed on as mathematics
and ship
-theory lecturer.
Fame came to him in the 1890s, when his pioneering Theory of oscillating motions of the ship, significantly extending William Froude
's rolling
theory, became internationally known. This was the first comprehensive theoretical study in the field. In 1898 Krylov received a Gold Medal from the Royal Institution of Naval Architects
, the first time the prize was awarded to a foreigner. He also created a theory of damping of ship rolling and pitching, and the was first to propose gyroscopic
damping which now is the most common way of damping the roll.
After 1900 Krylov actively collaborated with Stepan Makarov
, admiral
and maritime scientist, working on the ship floodability
problem. The results of this work soon became classic and are used today worldwide. Years later, Krylov wrote about of the early ideas of Makarov to fight the heel of a sinking ship by flooding its undamaged compartments: This appeared to be such a great nonsense [to the naval officials] that it took 35 years… to convince [them] that the ideas of the 22-year-old Makarov are of great practical value.
Krylov was well known for his sharp tongue and quick wits. His put downs to government and Duma officials were legendary. As a capable naval consultant, he claimed that his advice saved the government more than the cost of a dreadnaught
.
In 1917 he became CEO of Russian society for shipbuilding and trade (Русское общество пароходостроительства и торговли). After the October Revolution
he transferred all his ships to Soviet government and continued to work for the Russian Navy. In 1921 he went to London
to re-establish scientific contacts, working there as a representative of Soviet government. In 1927 he returned to the Soviet Union
.
Krylov wrote about 300 papers and books. They span a wide range of topics, including shipbuilding
, magnetism
, artillery
, mathematics
, astronomy
, and geodesy
. His floodability tables have been used worldwide. Of note are his works in hydrodynamics including theory of ships moving in shallow water (he was the first to explain and calculate the significant increase of hydrodynamic resistance in shallow water) and the theory of soliton
s. In 1904 he built the first machine in Russia for integrating
Ordinary differential equation
s.
In 1931 he published a paper on what is now called the Krylov subspace
and Krylov subspace methods. The paper deals with eigenvalue problems, namely, with computation of the characteristic polynomial
coefficients of a given matrix
. Krylov was concerned with efficient computations and, as a computational scientist, he counts the work as a number of separate numerical multiplications; something not very typical for a 1931 mathematical paper. Krylov begins with a careful comparison of the existing methods that include the worst-case-scenario estimate of the computational work in the Jacobi method
. Later, he presents his own method which is superior to the known methods of that time and is still widely used.
Krylov also published the first Russian translation of Isaac Newton
, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1915).
Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov died in Saint Petersburg
(by that time Leningrad) on October 26, 1945, shortly after the end of the World War II
. He is buried in the Volkovo Cemetery
, not far from the physiologist Ivan Pavlov
and the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev
. He was awarded Stalin Prize (1941), three Orders of Lenin
, Hero of Socialist Labor
(1943), and was an academician
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
(after 1916). The crater Krylov
on the Moon
is named after him.
In one of his autobiographical papers, Krylov describes his activity as 'shipbuilding, i.e. application of Mathematics to various Maritime problems.'
. Their children included geographer Andrey Kapitsa
(1931–2001). Alexei Krylov was very close to his son-in-law.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n naval
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
, applied mathematician
Applied mathematics
Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...
and memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
ist.
Biography
Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov was born on August 3 O.S., 1863 to the family of an Army ArtilleryArtillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
officer in a village Akhmatovo near town Alatyr of the Simbirsk Gubernia in Russia. Nikolay Krylov's parents were rather poor, but he received a free education as the son of an army veteran.
Krylov entered a Naval College (Морское училище) in 1878 and finished with distinction in 1884. There he did his first scientific work with Ivan de Collong
Ivan de Collong
Jean Alexander Heinrich Clapier de Colongue was a Russian marine engineer and founder of a theory of magnetic deviation for magnetic compasses....
about Deviation
Magnetic deviation
Magnetic deviation is the error induced in a compass by local magnetic fields, which must be allowed for, along with magnetic declination, if accurate bearings are to be calculated....
of magnetic compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...
es. The theory of magnetic and gyro-compasses fascinated him all his life; he later published important works related to the dynamics of the magnetic compass and proposed the dromoscope, a device that would automatically calculate the deviation of a compass. He also was a pioneer of the gyrocompass
Gyrocompass
A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which bases on a fast-spinning disc and rotation of our planet to automatically find geographical direction...
, being the first to create a full theory of it.
After spending several years at the Main Hydrographic Administration and at a shipbuilding plant (French-Russian shipbuilding company), in 1888 he continued his study in the Naval Academy
Naval Academy
-Institutions:* The United States Naval Academy* The Indian Naval Academy of India* The Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy of Bulgaria* The Imperial Japanese Naval Academy* The École Navale of France* The Britannia Royal Naval College of the United Kingdom...
of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. He was a talented and promising student and after graduating ahead-of-schedule from the Academy in 1890, stayed on as mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and ship
Ship
Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
-theory lecturer.
Fame came to him in the 1890s, when his pioneering Theory of oscillating motions of the ship, significantly extending William Froude
William Froude
William Froude was an English engineer, hydrodynamicist and naval architect. He was the first to formulate reliable laws for the resistance that water offers to ships and for predicting their stability....
's rolling
Flight dynamics
Flight dynamics is the science of air vehicle orientation and control in three dimensions. The three critical flight dynamics parameters are the angles of rotation in three dimensions about the vehicle's center of mass, known as pitch, roll and yaw .Aerospace engineers develop control systems for...
theory, became internationally known. This was the first comprehensive theoretical study in the field. In 1898 Krylov received a Gold Medal from the Royal Institution of Naval Architects
Royal Institution of Naval Architects
The Royal Institution of Naval Architects is an international organisation representing naval architects. It is an international professional institution whose members are involved world-wide at all levels in the design, construction, repair and operation of ships, boats and marine...
, the first time the prize was awarded to a foreigner. He also created a theory of damping of ship rolling and pitching, and the was first to propose gyroscopic
Gyroscope
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
damping which now is the most common way of damping the roll.
Stepan Makarov
Stepan Osipovich Makarov was a Ukrainian - born Russian vice-admiral, a highly accomplished and decorated commander of the Imperial Russian Navy, an oceanographer, awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and author of several books. Makarov also designed a small number of ships...
, admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
and maritime scientist, working on the ship floodability
Ship floodability
Floodability is a characteristic of the construction of a ship to resist flooding.Floodability is achieved by dividing the volume of the hull into watertight compartments with decks and bulkheads , use of double bottom, and by other means.Watertight bulkhead compartments were written of by the Song...
problem. The results of this work soon became classic and are used today worldwide. Years later, Krylov wrote about of the early ideas of Makarov to fight the heel of a sinking ship by flooding its undamaged compartments: This appeared to be such a great nonsense [to the naval officials] that it took 35 years… to convince [them] that the ideas of the 22-year-old Makarov are of great practical value.
Krylov was well known for his sharp tongue and quick wits. His put downs to government and Duma officials were legendary. As a capable naval consultant, he claimed that his advice saved the government more than the cost of a dreadnaught
HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the British Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of...
.
In 1917 he became CEO of Russian society for shipbuilding and trade (Русское общество пароходостроительства и торговли). After the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
he transferred all his ships to Soviet government and continued to work for the Russian Navy. In 1921 he went to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to re-establish scientific contacts, working there as a representative of Soviet government. In 1927 he returned to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Krylov wrote about 300 papers and books. They span a wide range of topics, including shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
, magnetism
Magnetism
Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...
, artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, and geodesy
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...
. His floodability tables have been used worldwide. Of note are his works in hydrodynamics including theory of ships moving in shallow water (he was the first to explain and calculate the significant increase of hydrodynamic resistance in shallow water) and the theory of soliton
Soliton
In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium...
s. In 1904 he built the first machine in Russia for integrating
Integral
Integration is an important concept in mathematics and, together with its inverse, differentiation, is one of the two main operations in calculus...
Ordinary differential equation
Ordinary differential equation
In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation is a relation that contains functions of only one independent variable, and one or more of their derivatives with respect to that variable....
s.
Krylov subspace
In linear algebra, the order-r Krylov subspace generated by an n-by-n matrix A and a vector b of dimension n is the linear subspace spanned by the images of b under the first r powers of A , that is,...
and Krylov subspace methods. The paper deals with eigenvalue problems, namely, with computation of the characteristic polynomial
Characteristic polynomial
In linear algebra, one associates a polynomial to every square matrix: its characteristic polynomial. This polynomial encodes several important properties of the matrix, most notably its eigenvalues, its determinant and its trace....
coefficients of a given matrix
Matrix (mathematics)
In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers, symbols, or expressions. The individual items in a matrix are called its elements or entries. An example of a matrix with six elements isMatrices of the same size can be added or subtracted element by element...
. Krylov was concerned with efficient computations and, as a computational scientist, he counts the work as a number of separate numerical multiplications; something not very typical for a 1931 mathematical paper. Krylov begins with a careful comparison of the existing methods that include the worst-case-scenario estimate of the computational work in the Jacobi method
Jacobi eigenvalue algorithm
In numerical linear algebra, the Jacobi eigenvalue algorithm is an iterative method for the calculation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a real symmetric matrix...
. Later, he presents his own method which is superior to the known methods of that time and is still widely used.
Krylov also published the first Russian translation of Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1915).
Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov died in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
(by that time Leningrad) on October 26, 1945, shortly after the end of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He is buried in the Volkovo Cemetery
Volkovo Cemetery
The Volkovo Cemetery , is one of the largest and oldest non- Orthodox cemeteries in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Until the early 20th century it was one of the main burial grounds for Lutheran Germans in Russia...
, not far from the physiologist Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
and the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev , was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements...
. He was awarded Stalin Prize (1941), three Orders of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
, Hero of Socialist Labor
Hero of Socialist Labor
Hero of Socialist Labour was an honorary title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. It was the highest degree of distinction for exceptional achievements in national economy and culture...
(1943), and was an academician
Academician
The title Academician denotes a Full Member of an art, literary, or scientific academy.In many countries, it is an honorary title. There also exists a lower-rank title, variously translated Corresponding Member or Associate Member, .-Eastern Europe and China:"Academician" may also be a functional...
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
(after 1916). The crater Krylov
Krylov (crater)
Krylov is a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon. It lies about one crater diameter to the northwest of Cockroft, and due west of Evershed....
on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
is named after him.
In one of his autobiographical papers, Krylov describes his activity as 'shipbuilding, i.e. application of Mathematics to various Maritime problems.'
Family
Krylov married his second cousin Elisaveta Dmitrievna Dranitsyna. His daughter Anna married famous physicist Pyotr KapitsaPyotr Kapitsa
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was a prominent Soviet/Russian physicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Kapitsa was born in the city of Kronstadt and graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He worked for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge...
. Their children included geographer Andrey Kapitsa
Andrey Kapitsa
Andrey Petrovich Kapitsa was a Russian geographer. His father was Pyotr Kapitsa, and his maternal grandfather was Aleksey Krylov.Kapitsa was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and graduated from Moscow State University in 1953. He is credited with the discovery and naming of Lake Vostok, the...
(1931–2001). Alexei Krylov was very close to his son-in-law.