Isabella Bashmakova

Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova (Russian: Изабелла Григорьевна Башмакова, 1921–2005) was a Russian historian of mathematics.

Isabella Bashmakova
Bashmakova in 1987
Born	January 3, 1921 Rostov-on-Don
Nationality	Russian
Alma mater	Moscow State University
Awards	Honorary diplomas in 1971, 1976, and 1980
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Thesis	(1948)
Doctoral advisor	Sofya Yanovskaya

Education and career

Bashmakova was born on January 3, 1921, in Rostov-on-Don, to a family of Armenian descent. Her father, Grigory Georgiyevich Bashmakov, was a lawyer. Her family moved to Moscow in 1932. She began studies in the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Moscow State University in 1938, but was evacuated from Moscow during World War II, during which she served as a nurse in Samarkand.[1][2] She completed a Ph.D. in 1948, under the supervision of Sofya Yanovskaya.[3]

She continued at Moscow State as an assistant professor, and in 1949 was promoted to associate professor. In 1950 her husband, mathematician Andrei I. Lapin, was arrested for his opposition to Lysenkoism, but in part due to Bashmakova's efforts he was freed again in 1952.[4] Bashmakova completed her D.Sc. in 1961 and became a full professor in 1968.[1][2]

She retired and become a professor emeritus in 1999, and died on July 17, 2005 while vacationing in Zvenigorod.[5]

Contributions

Bashmakova's dissertation concerned the history of definitions of integers and rational numbers, from Euclid and Eudoxus to Zolotarev, Dedekind, and Kronecker.[1][2]

Her later research contributions include a comparison of the tools used by Diophantus to solve Diophantine equation, versus more modern methods; following a line of thought suggested by Jacobi, she suggested that Diophantus' methods were more sophisticated than previously thought, but that their sophistication had been hidden by the emphasis on specific cases in Diophantus's writings. She used complex numbers to reinterpret the geometric transformations studied by François Viète.[1][2] She has also studied the history of algebraic curves, and translated the works of Fermat into Russian.[6]

Books

Bashmakova's books include:

• Диофант и диофантовы уравнения, Nauka, 1972; Diophant und diophantische Gleichungen, Birkhäuser, 1974; Diophantus and Diophantine Equations, Mathematical Association of America, 1997.[7]
• Становление алгебры: Из истории математических идей [The development of algebra: From the history of mathematical ideas], Znanie, 1979.
• История диофантова анализа: От Диофанта до Ферма [History of Diophantine analysis: From Diophantus to Fermat, Nauka, 1984.[8]
• The beginnings and evolution of algebra (with Galina Smirnova, Mathematical Association of America, 2000)[9]

Recognition

In 1986, the International Congress of Mathematicians initially published a list of speakers that included no women. After protests, the executive committee of the congress invited six women to speak at the congress. Bashmakova was one of those six; she was unable to travel to the congress, but her paper appears in its proceedings.[10]

The International Academy of the History of Science elected her as a corresponding member in 1966, and a full member in 1971.[1][2] She was awarded honorary diplomas in 1971, 1976, and 1980.[4] In 2001, she was awarded the Alexander Koyré́ Medal of the International Academy of the History of Science.[4] In 2011, a conference of the Russian Academy of Sciences was dedicated in her honor.[11]

References

1. Aleksandrov, P. S.; Gnedenko, B. V.; Demidov, S. S.; Kolmogorov, A. N.; Petrova, S. S.; Rybnikov, K. A.; Yushkevich, A. P. (1981), "Izabella Grigor'evna Bashmakova (on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday)", Matematika v Shkole (1): 73–74, doi:10.1070/RM1981v036n05ABEH003060, MR 0618403.
2. Demidov, S. S.; Petrova, S. S.; Yushkevich, A. P. (1981), "Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova: on the occasion of her 60th birthday", Historia Mathematica, 8 (4): 389–392, doi:10.1016/0315-0860(81)90049-5, MR 0635359.
3. Isabella Bashmakova at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
4. Demidov, Sergey S.; Parshin, Alexei N.; Shafarevich, Igor R.; Petrova, Svetlana S.; Smirnova, Galina S.; Tikhomirov, Vladimir M. (2002), "Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova on the eightieth anniversary of her birth", Historia Mathematica, 29 (4): 370–382, doi:10.1006/hmat.2002.2363, MR 1936797.
5. Demidov, Sergei S.; Vandoulakis, Ioannis M. (2007), "Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova (1921–2005)", Historia Mathematica, 34 (2): 137–139, doi:10.1016/j.hm.2006.10.002, MR 2320096.
6. Demidov, S. S.; Petrova, S. S.; Yushkevich, A. P. (1991), "Isabella Grigoryevna Bashmakova on the 70th anniversary of her birth", Historia Mathematica, 18 (3): 209–211, doi:10.1016/0315-0860(91)90390-J, MR 1118952.
7. Reviews of Diophantus and Diophantine equations: R. Bölling, Zbl 0241.01003 and MR0414483; R. Steiner, MR0485648; Alan Osborne, The Mathematics Teacher, JSTOR 27970826; David Graves, MAA Reviews, ; K.-B.Gundlach, Zbl 0883.11001
8. Review of History of Diophantine analysis: L. Beran, MR0751410; K.-B.Gundlach, Zbl 0542.01001
9. Review of The beginnings and evolution of algebra: Karl-Heinz Schlote, MR1666256; Steve Abbott, The Mathematical Gazette, JSTOR 3621191; Jeanne Ramirez Corpus Mather, The Mathematics Teacher, JSTOR 27971589; G. L. Alexanderson, MAA Reviews, ; W.Kaunzner, Zbl 0942.01001
10. Case, Bettye Anne; Leggett, Anne M. (2005), "Across Borders", Complexities: Women in Mathematics, Princeton University Press, pp. 121–128, ISBN 9780691114620. See in particular p. 122.
11. Demidov, S. S. (2012), "A meeting of the mathematics section of the Central House of Scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the birth of I. G. Bashmakova", Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniya i Tekhniki (1): 195–198, MR 2976818.