Mikhail Yakovlevich Suslin
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Yakovlevich Suslin ' onMouseout='HidePop("87786")' href="/topics/Saratov_Oblast">Saratov Oblast
, November 15, 1894 – 1919) (sometimes transliterated Souslin) was a Russian
mathematician
who made major contributions to the fields of general topology
and descriptive set theory
.
His name is especially associated to Suslin's problem
, a question relating to totally ordered sets that was eventually found to be independent
of the standard system of set-theoretic axioms, ZFC.
He contributed greatly to the theory of analytic set
s, sometimes called after him, a kind of a set of reals
which is definable via trees. In fact, while he was a research student of Nikolai Luzin
(in 1917) he found an error in an argument of Lebesgue
, who believed he had proved that for any Borel set
in
, the projection onto the real axis was also a Borel set.
Suslin died of typhus
in the 1919 Moscow epidemic following the Russian Civil War
.
Saratov Oblast
Saratov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Saratov. Population: -Demographics:Population:...
, November 15, 1894 – 1919) (sometimes transliterated Souslin) was a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
who made major contributions to the fields of general topology
General topology
In mathematics, general topology or point-set topology is the branch of topology which studies properties of topological spaces and structures defined on them...
and descriptive set theory
Descriptive set theory
In mathematical logic, descriptive set theory is the study of certain classes of "well-behaved" subsets of the real line and other Polish spaces...
.
His name is especially associated to Suslin's problem
Suslin's problem
In mathematics, Suslin's problem is a question about totally ordered sets posed by Mikhail Yakovlevich Suslin in a work published posthumously in 1920....
, a question relating to totally ordered sets that was eventually found to be independent
Independence (mathematical logic)
In mathematical logic, independence refers to the unprovability of a sentence from other sentences.A sentence σ is independent of a given first-order theory T if T neither proves nor refutes σ; that is, it is impossible to prove σ from T, and it is also impossible to prove from T that...
of the standard system of set-theoretic axioms, ZFC.
He contributed greatly to the theory of analytic set
Analytic set
In descriptive set theory, a subset of a Polish space X is an analytic set if it is a continuous image of a Polish space. These sets were first defined by and his student .- Definition :There are several equivalent definitions of analytic set...
s, sometimes called after him, a kind of a set of reals
Set theory of the real line
Set theory of the real line is an area of mathematics concerned with the application of set theory to aspects of the real numbers.For example, one knows that all countable sets of reals are null, i.e. have Lebesgue measure 0; one might therefore ask the least possible size of a setwhich is not...
which is definable via trees. In fact, while he was a research student of Nikolai Luzin
Nikolai Luzin
Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin, , was a Soviet/Russian mathematician known for his work in descriptive set theory and aspects of mathematical analysis with strong connections to point-set topology. He was the eponym of Luzitania, a loose group of young Moscow mathematicians of the first half of the...
(in 1917) he found an error in an argument of Lebesgue
Henri Lebesgue
Henri Léon Lebesgue was a French mathematician most famous for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the seventeenth century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of a function defined for that axis...
, who believed he had proved that for any Borel set
Borel set
In mathematics, a Borel set is any set in a topological space that can be formed from open sets through the operations of countable union, countable intersection, and relative complement...
in
, the projection onto the real axis was also a Borel set.Suslin died of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
in the 1919 Moscow epidemic following the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
.