human
Provide an essay about sergei Natanovich Bernstein was a Russian Jew born in Ukraine and grew up in Odessa.
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##Personal Information
Sergei Natanovich Bernstein was born to a Jewish family in Ukraine (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010). As the saying goes the apple does not fall far from the tree and this was exemplified in the life of Sergie Bernstein because his father was not only a medical doctor but was also a well-respected professor at the University of Odessa. Unfortunately his father died when he was only eleven years old. He persevered in his studies until he completed high school.
After graduation from high school Sergei followed his elder sister who was studying in Paris. His sister went to Paris to study biology but after her graduation she decided not to go back to Ukraine and instead opted to stay in the French capital to work at the Pasteur Institute. This decision was a life-changing event for the young Sergei as well. He has now the means and the confidence to stay in Paris and study there.
##Educational Background
He graduated from high school in the year 1898 (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010). After the death of his father the strength of the family transferred to mother and elder sister. It is therefore important to note that the decision of her elder sister to stay in Paris, to take up residence and work there allowed Sergei Bernstein to also study in prestigious French colleges and as a result solidified an already impressive foundation in mathematics owing to the fact that his father was a professor and without a doubt taught him the fundamentals of mathematic early on.
Sergei decided to learn mathematics in Paris. He chose to master mathematics at the Sorbonne (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010). However, after one year of studying mathematics in this world-renowned educational institution, Sergei decided that he would rather become an engineer and as a consequence he enrolled at the Ecole d’Electrotechnique Superieure (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010, p.1). Nevertheless, he continued to sustain his interest in mathematics and therefore in the years 1902 and 1903 he spent time to study at Gottingen (Sinai, 2003, p.81).
Sergie Bernstein completed his doctoral dissertation and in the opening statement he wrote: “Today all mathematicians and physicists agree that the field of applications for mathematics knows no limits except those of knowledge itself” (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010, p.1). He submitted his dissertation to the Sorbonne and the professors who examined his work were greatly impressed by output of the young Bernstein (Sinai, 2003, p.82). He defended his work in 1904 (Grattan-Guinness, 1994, p.1329). It was an impressive work because the thesis solved Hilbert’s Nineteenth Problem asking for a proof that “all solutions of regular analytical variational problems are analytic” (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010, p.1). This caught the attention of his superiors and he was commended for this particular contribution to the field of mathematics.
##Work Experience
After receiving his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1904 Bernstein decided to go back to his homeland. He expected to be welcome with pride by his peers and his own people but it turned out that mother Russia during that time had a different standard when it comes to academic credentials. Although he already proved his skill and mathematical brilliance while studying in Paris; and even if he already possessed a doctorate degree, Bernstein had to submit to authority and worked on his doctoral programme for the second time (Sinai, 2003, p.83).
He also studied for his Master’s degree at Kharkov by going back to where he started which was to fully comprehend Hilbert’s Problems and he did so by solving the twentieth problem posed by Hilbert and this concerns the “analytic solution for a wide class of nonlinear elliptic equations (Sinai, 2003 p.83).
In 1913, eight years after he came back to Ukraine, Bernstein was pleased to receive his second doctorate and it was conferred upon him at Kharkov (Sinai, 2003, p.83). His doctorate thesis entitled About the Best Approximation of Continuous Functions by Polynomials of Given Degree was more than enough to secure him a doctorate degree, it also earned him a prize from the Belgium Academy of Science (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010, p.1). Interestingly it was only in 1918 when Bernstein was awarded his Master’s degree; this was the beginning of his rise to prominence.
It was also at the University of Kharkov where he became a professor and he taught there for 25 years (Sinai, 2003, p.83). After working for two decades and a half at the said university, he moved closer to the center of Russia and began to lecture at Leningrad University as well as at the Polytechnic Institute in 1933 (O’Connor & Robertson, 2010, p.1). It was also during this period in his life when he worked at the Mathematical Institute of the former Union Soviet Socialist Republic or U.S.S.R. (Sinai, 2003, p.83). Bernstein proved to be tireless workers in pursuit of higher learning.
##Contributions
In 1922 Bernstein was able to generalize Lyapunov’s conditions for validity fo the CLT “to ones which, when specialized to the same setting, are equivalent to those of J.W. Lindeberg, whose now-celebrated paper appeared in the same year” (Grattan-Guinness, year, p.1329). His published work entitled Teoriia veroiatnostei or Theory of Probability first appeared in 1927 and was reprinted up to the fourth edition in 1946 (Grattan-Guinness, 1994, p.1329).
In 1943 he moved to the University of Moscow and over the next seven years he dedicated his life to editing Chebyshev’s complete works (Sinai, 2003, p.83).His major contribution in this regard is the synthesis of the Russian mathematical school and presenting it to the world from the perspective of a Western European thinker, thanks in part to his studies and exposure at the Sorbonne. This is the reason why the world owes a debt of gratitude to the man.
##Conclusion
If one will not consider the achievements of Bernstein his life can still be a source of inspiration not only for young mathematicians eager to make their mark in the world but also to students who struggle after the death of a father. Bernstein proved that with passion and perseverance one can overcome the odds. But he went even further by providing solutions to complex mathematical problems. However, it can be argued that one of his major contributions was to bridge the gap between the East and West. His training at the Sorbonne was not put to waste because he was able to share to the world a significant portion of Russia’s mathematical output and by doing so help elevate the field of mathematics to a considerable degree. Sergei Natanovich Bernstein was laid to rest in Moscow in October 26, 1968.