Yesterday and Long Ago

by Vladimir I. Arnold, Leonora P. Kotova (Translator), Owen L. Delange (Translator)

This is a charming collection of essays on life and science, by one of the leading mathematicians of our day. Vladimir Igorevich Arnold is renowned for his achievements in mathematics, and nearly as famous for his informal teaching style, and for the clarity and accessibility of his writing. The chapter headings convey Arnold’s humor and restless imagination. A few My first recollections; The combinatorics of Plutarch; The topology of surfaces according to Alexander of Macedon; Catching a pike in Cambridge. Yesterday and Long Ago offers a rare opportunity to appreciate the life and work of one of the world’s outstanding living mathematicians.

Genres: Mathematics

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Vladimir Igorevich Arnold (alternative spelling Arnol'd, Russian: Влади́мир И́горевич Арно́льд, 12 June 1937 – 3 June 2010)[1] was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. While he is best known for the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem regarding the stability of integrable systems, he made important contributions in several areas including dynamical systems theory, catastrophe theory, topology, algebraic geometry, classical mechanics and singularity theory, including posing the ADE classification problem, since his first main result—the partial solution of Hilbert's thirteenth problem in 1957 at the age of 19.

Reviews

[Erick Rodríguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a charming book. Here you can find plenty of personal and interesting scenes from Arnold's life and from russian mathematics.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable book to read. It covers mostly anecdotes from Arnold's life and little about his math and physics research. However he does mention other famous mathematicians and physicists throughout history with some of their backstory. The one thing I did not enjoy is the history lesson of kings and queens from France and Russia. It was not math or physics related and wondered why it was in the book. One interesting anecdote is that Ramanujan from India only used blankets to lay on. While studying in England the nights are very cold and it never 0ccured to him to use the blankets to cover himself. From long exposure to this he became ill and never recovered.

[Sudip Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected this book to be an autobiographical sketch focusing on Arnold's mathematical work. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of mathematical content. The presentation seems rambling at times with coverage of everything from French history to Arnold's travels.

[Ruci Tukana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The anthology gives a glimpse of people's life, dreams and recollection of the past.

Beautifully expressed

I recommend this.