Ivan Georgiyevich Petrovsky (18 January 1901 – 15 January 1973) was a Soviet mathematician working mainly in the field of partial differential equations. He greatly contributed to the solution of Hilbert's 19th and 16th problems, and discovered what are now called Petrovsky lacunas. He also worked on the theories of boundary value problems, probability, and on the topology of algebraic curves and surfaces.

Biography

Petrovsky was a student of Dmitri Egorov. Among his students were Olga Ladyzhenskaya, Evgenii Landis, Olga Oleinik and Sergei Godunov. Petrovsky taught at Steklov Institute of Mathematics. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union since 1946 and was awarded Hero of Socialist Labour in 1969. He was the president of Moscow State University (1951–1973) and the head of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Moscow, 1966). He died in Moscow, and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Selected publications