Efim Zelmanov
Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist
Efim Isaakovich Zelmanov (Template:Langx; born 7 September 1955) is a Russian-American<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> mathematician, known for his work on combinatorial problems in nonassociative algebra and group theory, including his solution of the restricted Burnside problem. He was awarded a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich in 1994.
BiographyEdit
Zelmanov was born on 7 September 1955 into a Jewish family in Khabarovsk. He entered Novosibirsk State University in 1972, when he was 17 years old.<ref>Interview with Zelmanov (in Russian)</ref> He obtained a doctoral degree at Novosibirsk State University in 1980, and a higher degree at Leningrad State University in 1985. He had a position in Novosibirsk until 1987, when he left the Soviet Union.
In 1990, he moved to the United States, becoming a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was at the University of Chicago in 1994/5, then at Yale University. In 1996, he became a Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study and in 2002, he became a professor at the University of California, San Diego.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2011 he got hon DSc from QUB (Belfast)<ref>QUB honours for top broadcaster and maths genius By Lindsay Fergus, Belfast Telegraph 8 Jul 2011</ref>
In 2022, he moved to the People's Republic of China and joined the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He served as a chair professor and the scientific director of the SUSTech International Center for Mathematics.
Zelmanov was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2001,<ref>National Academy of Sciences Elections, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 48 (2001), no. 7, p. 722</ref> becoming, at the age of 47, the youngest member of the mathematics section of the academy.<ref>FIELDS MEDALIST JOINS MATHEMATICS FACULTY AT UCSD, University of California at San Diego news release, October 28, 2002</ref> He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1996)<ref>American Academy Elections, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 43 (1996), no. 7, p. 781</ref> and a foreign member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences.<ref>Efim Zelmanov to receive honorary doctor of science degree from University of Alberta Template:Webarchive, University of Alberta press release, June 14, 2011</ref> In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.<ref>List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-09-01.</ref>
Zelmanov gave invited talks at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw (1983), Kyoto (1990) and Zurich (1994).<ref>Biographies of candidates 1998, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 45 (1998), no. 8, p. 1018</ref> He delivered the 2004 Turán Memorial Lectures.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was awarded Honorary Doctor degrees from the University of Hagen, Germany (1997),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the University of Alberta, Canada (2011),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine (2012),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo in Santander, Spain (2015),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the University of Lincoln, UK (2016),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium (2023).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Zelmanov's early work was on Jordan algebras in the case of infinite dimensions. He was able to show that Glennie's identity in a certain sense generates all identities that hold. He then showed that the Engel identity for Lie algebras implies nilpotence, in the case of infinite dimensions.
Notable publicationsEdit
- Zelʹmanov, E.I. Solution of the restricted Burnside problem for groups of odd exponent. Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR Ser. Mat. 54 (1990), no. 1, 42–59, 221. English translation in Math. USSR-Izv. 36 (1991), no. 1, 41–60. doi:10.1070/IM1991v036n01ABEH001946
- Zelʹmanov, E.I. Solution of the restricted Burnside problem for 2-groups. Mat. Sb. 182 (1991), no. 4, 568–592. English translation in Math. USSR-Sb. 72 (1992), no. 2, 543–565. doi:10.1070/SM1992v072n02ABEH001272