Naum Yakovlevich Vilenkin

Naum Yakovlevich Vilenkin (Russian: Наум Яковлевич Виленкин, October 30, 1920 in Moscow – October 19, 1991 in Moscow) was a Soviet mathematician, an expert in representation theory, the theory of special functions, functional analysis, and combinatorics. He is best known as the author of many books in recreational mathematics aimed at middle and high school students.

Biography

Vilenkin studied at the Moscow State University where he was a student of A.G. Kurosh. He received his degree of doktor nauk in physics and mathematics in 1950; and was awarded the Ushinsky prize for his school mathematics textbooks in 1976.

In 1975−1990 he assisted Lyudmila Georgievna Peterson in the development of a preschool and school curriculum for teaching mathematics.^[1]

Books

• Combinatorics by N.Ia. Vilenkin, A. Shenitzer, and S. Shenitzer (hardcover – Sep 1971)
• Representation Theory and Noncommutative Harmonic Analysis II: Homogeneous Spaces, Representations, and Special Functions (Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences) by A. U. Klimyk, V. F. Molchanov, N. Ya. Vilenkin, and A. A. Kirillov (hardcover – Aug 26, 2004)
• Representation of Lie Groups and Special Functions: Recent Advances (Mathematics and Its Applications) by N. Ja, Vilenkin and A. U. Klimyk (hardcover – Nov 1, 1994)
• Representation of Lie Groups and Special Functions Volume 1: Simplest Lie Groups, Special Functions and Integral Transforms (Mathematics and its Applications) by N.Ia. Vilenkin and A. U. Klimyk (hardcover – Nov 15, 1991)
• Generalized Functions. Volume 5. Integral geometry and representation theory by I. M. Gel'fand, M. I. Graev, N. Ya. Vilenkin, and E. Saletan (hardcover – Oct 25, 1966)
• Direct decompositions of topological groups, I, II (American Mathematical Society. Translation) by N. Ia. Vilenkin (1950)

Books in recreational mathematics

• In Search of Infinity by N. Ya. Vilenkin (Hardcover – 1995)
• Combinatorial mathematics for recreation by N. Ia. Vilenkin (1972)
• Stories About Sets by N. Ia. Vilenkin (Paperback – 1968)
• Successive approximation, (Popular lectures in mathematics) by N. Ya. Vilenkin (1964)