The Fifth problem: math & anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union: A look at anti-Semitic university admissions in the USSR from the perspective of a leading mathematician

Edward Frenkel:

When I was growing up in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, I thought math was a stale, boring subject.1 I could solve all of the problems and ace all of the exams at school, but what we discussed in class seemed pointless, irrelevant. What really excited me was Quantum Physics. I devoured all the popular books on this subject I could get my hands on. But these books didn't go far enough in answering deeper questions about the structure of the universe, so I wasn't fully satisfied.

As luck would have it, I got help from a family friend. I grew up in a small industrial town called Kolomna, population 150 thousand, which was about seventy miles away from Moscow, or just over two hours by train. My parents worked as engineers at a large company, making heavy machinery. One of their friends was a mathematician by the name of Evgeny Evgenievich Petrov, who was a professor at a local college preparing school teachers. A meeting was arranged.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 8, 2012 1:37 AM
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