Eugene Dynkin - Definition

Eugene Borisovich Dynkin (born May 11, 1924) is a Russian mathematician. He has made contributions to the fields of probability and algebra, especially semisimple Lie groups, Lie algebras, and Markov processes. The Dynkin diagram is named for him.

Dynkin lived in Leningrad until 1935, when his father was designated a People's Enemy and the family was exiled to Kazakhstan. At the age of 16, in 1940, despite his father's political difficulties, Dynkin enrolled at Moscow University. He avoided military service in World War II because of his poor eyesight, and received his M.S. in 1945 and his Ph.D. in 1948. He became an assistant professor at Moscow, but was not awarded a "chair" until 1954 because of his political undesirability.

In 1968 Dynkin was forced to transfer to the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he worked on the theory of economic growth and economic equilibrium.

He remained at the Institute until 1976, when he emmigrated to the United States. He became a professor at Cornell University, where he remains as of 2004.

External links

• Biography (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Dynkin.html) at the University of St Andrews