In 1841 Davidov enrolled in the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. He graduated in 1845, and was retained at the university in order to prepare for a teaching career. In 1848 he defended his dissertation, The Theory of Equilibrium of Bodies Immersed in a Liquid, and received the master of mathematical sciences degree. Davidov’s dissertation was devoted to the exceptionally pressing problem of the equilibrium of floating bodies.
In 1841 Davidov enrolled in the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. He graduated in 1845, and was retained at the university in order to prepare for a teaching career. In 1848 he defended his dissertation, The Theory of Equilibrium of Bodies Immersed in a Liquid, and received the master of mathematical sciences degree. Davidov’s dissertation was devoted to the exceptionally pressing problem of the equilibrium of floating bodies.
August Yulevich Davidov was a Russian mathematician and engineer. He worked as a professor at Moscow University and served as president of the Moscow Mathematical Society from 1866 to 1885.
Background
Davidov was born on December 15, 1823, in Liepāja, Courland, Russian Empire (now Liepaja, Latvia), the son of a physician. His younger brother Karl Davidov (1838-1889) became a noted cellist and composer and director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Education
In 1839 Davidov was sent to Moscow to attend the school that is now Bauman Moscow State Technical University. In 1841 he enrolled in the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. He graduated in 1845 and was retained at the university in order to prepare for a teaching career. In 1848 he defended his dissertation, The Theory of Equilibrium of Bodies Immersed in a Liquid, and received the master of mathematical sciences degree. Davidov’s dissertation was devoted to the exceptionally pressing problem of the equilibrium of floating bodies.
Although Euler, Poisson, and Dupin had worked extensively on the problem they had far from exhausted it, and new, major results were obtained by Davidov. He was the first to give a general analytic method for determining the position of equilibrium of a floating body, applied his method to the determination of positions of equilibrium of bodies, explained the analytical theory by geometric constructions, and investigated the stability of equilibrium of floating bodies.
In 1850 Davidov began teaching at Moscow University, and in 1851 he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, The Theory of Capillary Phenomena. Shortly thereafter he was appointed a professor at Moscow University, where he worked until the end of his life. Both of his dissertations were awarded the Demidovskoy prize by the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Of the other valuable mathematics studies done by Davidov mention should be made of those on equations with partial derivatives, elliptical functions, and the application of the theory of probability to statistics. He also compiled a number of excellent texts for secondary schools. Of these, the geometry and algebra textbooks enjoyed special success and were republished many times. Through the next half century the geometry text underwent thirty-nine editions and the algebra text twenty-four.
Davidov conducted much scientific organizational work. For twelve years he was head of the physics and mathematics faculty; for thirty-five years he taught various courses in mathematics and mechanics at the university and prepared two generations of scientific workers and teachers. Along with N. D. Brashman, Davidov was a founder of the Moscow Mathematical Society and was its first president (1866-1885).
Achievements
Membership
Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography
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Russian Federation
Imperial Russian Society of Acclimatization of Plants and Animals
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Russian Federation
Moscow Mathematical Society
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Russian Federation
1866 - 1885
Connections
Davidov's son Alexei Davidov (1867-1940) became a cellist and composer, then a successful businessman and industrialist and (after the Russian Revolution) an exile in Germany.