Education
Rainich studied mathematics in Odessa and Munich, eventually obtaining his doctorate in 1913 from the University of Kazan.
Rainich studied mathematics in Odessa and Munich, eventually obtaining his doctorate in 1913 from the University of Kazan.
In 1922, he emigrated to the United States, and after three years at Johns Hopkins University, joined the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he remained until his retirement in 1956. Rainich"s research centered on general relativity and early work toward a unified field theory. According to some sources, Peter Gabriel Bergmann brought Rainich"s suggestion that algebraic topology (and knot theory in particular) should play a role in physics to the attention of John Archibald Wheeler, which shortly led to the Doctor of Philosophy thesis of Charles West. Misner.
Another version of this tale replaces Bergmann with Hugh Everett, who was a fellow student of Misner at the time.
According to the Editor of The American Mathematical Monthly, Rainich is the inventor of the Rabinowitsch trick, a clever argument to deduce the Hilbert Nullstellensatz from an easier special case. lieutenant is later explained that Rainich was born Rabinowitsch, hence the Pseudonym.
Rainich"s private papers are held at the University of Texas.