Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov

Abstract

April 25, 2003, marked the centennial of the birth of Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, probably the greatest Soviet mathematician of the twentieth century. He was born out of wedlock – his surname is that of his maternal grandfather – and his mother died in childbirth, so he was raised by a maternal aunt who instilled in him a strong sense of personal responsibility and intellectual independence. After finishing school, he worked for a time as a railway conductor before entering Moscow State University in 1920. These were hard years in the fledgling USSR: when he learned that second-year students, in addition to a meagre stipend, also received an additional monthly ration of 16kg of bread and 1kg of lard, he immediately stood for the examinations to pass to second year.