8 1911 October, the
Born in Moscow Alexey Lyapunov — mathematician, educator, humanist. One of the founders of cybernetics.
My father was an engineer and physicist who built roads and studied the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. He came from a noble family that included many distinguished people.
In 1928, he entered the physics and mathematics department of Moscow University, but dropped out a year later, refusing to sign a letter about the demolition of churches.
At 20 I met an academician Nikolai Luzin and with its help received a mathematical education
In 1934, at 23, he wrote his first scientific paper on set theory – a field he worked in until the end of his life.
With the onset of the Great Patriotic War, he abandoned armor and built defensive fortifications near Moscow. Later, he commanded a topographic platoon in the artillery. He continued his research, studying gunnery using probability theory.
In the army, he wasn't just a fighter. When our troops entered Germany and there was already a lot of resentment against the Nazis, he made everyone see the difference between the Nazis and the Germans.
(biologist and war veteran Alexander Malinovsky)
After the war, he taught at the Artillery Academy and gathered the first cyberneticists around him.
Back in the early 1950s, he organized the country's first programming course at Moscow University. And in his apartment, he hosted the only scientific seminar on genetics (at that time, genetics was considered "the pseudoscience of obscurantists" in the USSR).
In 1955 he signed the “Letter of Three Hundred” against the persecution of genetics.
You see, boys, this is real science, important for the country. It absolutely had to be preserved.
(in response to students' questions about fear of arrest)
There, at home, he organized a children's scientific society for his children and their friends. In 1956, two of his daughters, students in the biology department of Moscow State University, were accused of secretly studying genetics (the "Lyapunov sisters' case" fell apart against the backdrop of the 20th Congress of the CPSU).
He didn't hesitate to criticize the achievements of party scientists, calling their work "illiterate nonsense." At meetings of the USSR Academy of Sciences, he demonstratively sat with a stiff upper lip. Sakharov, "to the left and right of which there were five empty seats."
What, are they going to fight me?!
For a long time he worked at the Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and later at the Computing Center of the Ministry of Defense.
He laid the foundations of the mathematical theory of programming, proposing a programming language that became the precursor to high-level languages. He also developed the first algorithms for computers.
He organized a team that created the world's first translators - "programming programs".
The author of the convexity theorem (used in statistics and control theory), of which he was very proud.
Developed mathematical linguistics and mathematical biology.
He secured the establishment of the Council on Cybernetics at the USSR Academy of Sciences and established the publication of the journal "Problems of Cybernetics." He was one of the founders of the journal "Mathematical Education."
He helped little-known, talented scientists, artists, and musicians. He readily shared his ideas and scientific discoveries. He had a broad outlook, and was a talented orator and teacher.
In 1961, at 50, he left for Siberia, created cybernetics departments at several institutes and universities.
He was one of the initiators of the Physics and Mathematics Boarding School (PMS) at Novosibirsk University and graduated many talented scientists.
His spiritual stature was unattainably lofty. In his later years, it combined with the appearance of a Prophet. All this was alive, active, energetic, civic-minded.
(student, future deputy and Minister of Natural Resources Nikolai Vorontsov)
He died in 1973 in Moscow, at 61, from a heart attack.
In the 1990s, he posthumously received the “Computer Pioneer” medal.
Humans are adaptable systems. They adapt to changes in the external environment, changing their behavior and lifestyle, and many even change their beliefs repeatedly. Lyapunov was a completely non-adaptable system.
(Academician Alexander Yanshin, speech at the funeral)
