Biography:Dima Von-Der-Flaass
Dmitry Germanovich von der Flaass | |
|---|---|
Дмитрий Германович Фон-дер-Флаасс | |
| Born | 8 September 1962 |
| Died | 10 June 2010 (aged 47) |
| Citizenship |  Soviet Union,  Russia |
| Alma mater | Novosibirsk State University |
| Known for | Cameron–Fon-Der-Flaass IBIS theorem |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics, Education |
| Institutions | Sobolev Institute of Mathematics |
| Thesis | (1986) |
| Academic advisors | Victor Mazurov |
| Website | flaass.livejournal.com |
D. G. Von Der Flaass (September 8, 1962 – June 10, 2010) was a Russian mathematician and educator, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, senior researcher at the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics. He was a specialist in combinatorics, a popularizer of mathematics, and an author of International Mathematical Olympiad problems. He was also a jury member for numerous mathematical olympiads. He had an Erdős number of 1.
Biography
Early years
In 1975, at the age of 13 (two years earlier than usual), Von Der Flaass was admitted to the Lavrentiev Physics and Mathematics School. He actively participated in school mathematics olympiads, consistently winning prizes in the Soviet Student Olympiads. He was a member of the USSR school team at the XIX International Mathematical Olympiad in Belgrade, where he won a bronze medal,[1] despite being 3–4 years younger than his competitors.
He specialized in the Department of Algebra and Mathematical Logic, where, under the supervision of Professor V. D. Mazurov, he researched finite groups. He defended his diploma on this topic, entered the postgraduate program at NSU, and in 1986 (at the age of 23), defended his Candidate's dissertation on maximal subgroups of finite simple groups. The results of his dissertation attracted great interest from specialists and significantly contributed to the classification of finite simple groups at that time. According to his scientific advisor, even while writing his Candidate’s dissertation, Von-der-Flaass showed a clear inclination toward elegant and ingenious combinatorial constructions.
Von der Flaass taught for several years in the United States and the United Kingdom but later returned to Russia, stating that the only place where he could feel comfortable was Akademgorodok.[2]
Scientific work
Von der Flaass specialized in combinatorics as a research fellow at the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics. His main interests lay in graph theory and coding theory. Over 25 years of work, he published a significant number of research papers, and in the last 10 years, his results were recognized four times as among the most important in the institute’s annual reports.[3]
As a result, Von der Flaass became a well-known specialist in his field. However, the diversity and versatility of his creative nature prevented him from formalizing a doctoral dissertation based on his many published results. Only under years of pressure from his superiors and with technical support from colleagues at the institute did he prepare his doctoral dissertation, "The Algebraic Method in Combinatorial Problems." It successfully passed all levels of evaluation and was even listed in the Higher Attestation Commission bulletin. However, it was ultimately never defended, as the candidate was unwilling to spend a few more days on it.[4]
In 2012, a collection of memoirs about him was published.[5] A posthumous publication of his doctoral dissertation was also planned.[2]
Olympiad and teaching activities
In the All-Russian Olympiad jury, his specialty, as in professional mathematics, was combinatorics. In the evaluation of high-level combinatorial problems, where the absence of standard formulas shifts the focus to intricate reasoning, the unique talent of von der Flaass was most vividly displayed. Receiving such a participant’s work, he always immersed himself in it with keen interest, before either happily exclaiming: "Well done, look at this solution!" or silently pointing out a flaw in the reasoning. He always rejoiced at good solutions to difficult problems as if they were his own and frequently discussed them with colleagues. Often, after his comments such as: "Well, this is clear! Let’s swap these two sections, skip this part, correct two letters here, and it’s done!", even the most convoluted and unreadable text would become clear and well-structured. Von der Flaass was typically assigned the most difficult part of the evaluation, and his judgment on any given work was never questioned. It was always a joy for any jury to hear that von der Flaass would be attending the Olympiad.[2][4]
Bringing scientific results to a form understandable and accessible even to school students attracted von der Flaass the most. On this note, he concluded his activity, achieving a new mathematical result[6] and transforming it into a beautiful problem, which became the most difficult problem of the final round of the 2010 All-Russian Mathematical Olympiad for school students.[7][8]
Selected publications
- P. Erdős, D. G. von der Flaass, A. V. Kostochka, Zs. Tuza (1992). "Small transversals in uniform hypergraphs" (in und). Siberian Adv. Math. 2: 82–88.
- M. Alekseev, D. Barsky, A. Vorobey, G. Merzon, Yu. Prokopchuk, D. von der Flaass (2004). "On a problem of sequential decoding". Proceedings of the XV International School-Seminar "Synthesis and Complexity of Control Systems": 5–8. http://home.gwu.edu/~maxal/flaass2004.pdf.
- D. G. von der Flaass (2010). "Extending pairings to Hamiltonian cycles". Siberian Electronic Mathematical Reports 7: 115–118. http://semr.math.nsc.ru/v7/p115-118.pdf.
- D. G. von der Flaass (2010). "The Sophist Gorgias' Theorems and Modern Mathematics". Kvant (5). http://elementy.ru/lib/431269.
- Publications of D. G. von der Flaass on Mathnet.ru
- Olympiad problems by D. G. von der Flaass on Problems.ru
Notes
- ↑ Individual ranking of Dmitrii Flaas (), IMO official website.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Demina, N. (2010). "Dima von der Flaas: In Memory of a Bright and Talented Person". Troitsky Variant (58): pp. 6–7. http://trv-science.ru/2010/07/20/dima-fon-der-flaas-pamyati-svetlogo-i-talantlivogo-cheloveka/.
- ↑ Information about employee Dmitry Germanovich von der Flaass () on the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics website.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Avgustinovich, S. V.; Borodin, O. V.; Kostochka, A. V.; Mazurov, V. D. (2010). "In Memory of Dmitry Germanovich von der Flaass". Siberian Electronic Mathematical Reports 7: A.1–A.4. http://semr.math.nsc.ru/v7/a1-4.pdf.
- ↑ E. V. Konstantinova, ed (2012). Dima Von-der-Flaass. Geo. pp. 275. ISBN 978-5-904682-73-6. http://math.nsc.ru/Archive/disk/memory/flaas.pdf.
- ↑ K. V. Vorobyev, D. G. von der Flaass (2010). "On Perfect 2-Colorings of a Hypercube". Siberian Electronic Mathematical Reports 7: 65–75. http://semr.math.nsc.ru/v7/p65-75.pdf.
- ↑ Problem 11.8, Materials for the Final Stage of the 36th All-Russian Mathematical Olympiad, 2009–2010, Maikop, April 25–30, 2010. ()
- ↑ The formulation and official solution of the problem in the blog of D. G. von der Flaass: Fresh from the oven (), and solution of the problem ().
External links
- Blog of D. G. von der Flaass on LiveJournal
- M. Shkolnik (2010-06-18). "Gone to Olympus". Navigator (23). http://www.navigato.ru/number/336/publication/10211.
- Photographs with Dima von der Flaass from the home archive
- Alexandre Borovik, Dima von der Flaass, a child of lost time
- The first user of Kronos, D. G. von der Flaass, presenting the game “Labyrinth” written by him to Marina von der Flaass (Filippova). The photograph was taken by a correspondent of the magazine “Young Technician.”
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