Sergey Mikhailovich Nikolsky was a Russian mathematician. He had been an Academician since November 28, 1972. He also had won many scientific awards. At the age of 92 he was still actively giving lectures in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 2005, he was only giving talks at scientific conferences, but was still working in MIPT, at the age of 100.
Background
Nikolsky Sergey Mikhailovich was born on the 17th of April, 1905 in Talitsa plant settlement, Perm Province (now a city within the Sverdlovsk Region). His father, Mikhail Dmitrievich Nikolsky, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Forest Institute, was a forester, at the same time taught at a forest school, has been killed by bandits. Mother Lyudmila Mikhailovna Fedorova was a rural teacher.
Sergey became the fourth in the family, there were six children in total. His childhood passed in Avgustovsky pristine forest (Poland).
Education
From the age of 14, Sergey has been working in forestry and as an observer at the Red Cordon meteorological station, and then as an assistant gardener in the nursery of the Livensky Collective Farm. In 1918-1921 Nikolsky lived in the Voronezh Territory (Puzevo, Livenka, Tumanovka, Pavlovsky district), began his studies in Buturlinovka (1919), graduated from school in Pavlovsk (1921). In 1929 he graduated from the Ekaterinoslav Institute of National Education.
Career
After Sergey Mikhailovich graduated from the Ekaterinoslav Institute of National Education in 1929 and later worked there as a lecturer. Since 1940 he was a researcher at the Mathematical Institute named after V.A. Steklov, since 1947 he was a professor of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
He also was the chief researcher of the MIAN, a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, a member of the Presidium of the Scientific and Methodological Council on Mathematics under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
Sergey Mikhailovich was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Uspekhi Matematicheskikh Nauk", a member of the editorial board of information publications on mathematics of VINITI. In 1943-1947 Sergey Mikhailovich concurrently worked as head of the mathematics department of the Moscow Automobile and Road Institute.