Leonid Kantorovich

Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich () (19 January 19127 April 1986) was a Soviet mathematician and economist, known for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources.  He is regarded as the founder of linear programming.  He was the winner of the Stalin Prize in 1949 and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1975. 

Biography 
Kantorovich was born on 19 January 1912, to a Russian Jewish family.  His father was a doctor practicing in Saint Petersburg.  In 1926, at the age of fourteen, he began his studies at the Leningrad University.  He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics in 1930, and began his graduate studies.  In 1934, at the age of 22 years, he became a full professor. 

Later, Kantorovich worked for the Soviet government.  He was given the task of optimizing production in a plywood industry.  He came up with the mathematical technique now known as linear programming in 1939, some years before it was advanced by George Dantzig.  He authored several books including The Mathematical Method of Production Planning and Organization (Russian original 1939), The Best Uses of Economic Resources (Russian original 1959), and, with Vladimir Ivanovich Krylov, Approximate methods of higher analysis (Russian original 1936).  For his work, Kantorovich was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949. 

After 1939, he became the professor of Military Engineering-Technical University.  During the Siege of Leningrad, Kantorovich was the professor of VITU of Navy and in charge of safety on the Road of Life.  He calculated the optimal distance between cars on ice, depending on thickness of ice and temperature of the air.  In December 1941 and January 1942, Kantorovich personally walked between cars driving on the ice of Lake Ladoga, on the Road of Life, to ensure the cars did not sink.  However, many cars with food for survivors of the siege were destroyed by the German air-bombings.  In 1948 Kantorovich was  assigned to the atomic project of the USSR.  For his feat and courage Kantorovich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, and was decorated with the medal For Defense of Leningrad.  

After 1960, Kantorovich lived and worked in Novosibirsk, where he created and took charge of the Department of Computational Mathematics in Novosibirsk State University. 

The  Nobel Memorial Prize, which he shared with Tjalling Koopmans, was given "for their contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources." 

Mathematics
In mathematical analysis, Kantorovich had important results in functional analysis, approximation theory, and operator theory. 

In particular, Kantorovich formulated fundamental results in the theory of normed vector lattices, which are called "K-spaces" in his honor. 

Kantorovich showed that functional analysis could be used in the analysis of iterative methods, obtaining the Kantorovich inequalities on the convergence rate of the gradient method and of Newton's method (see the Kantorovich theorem). 

Kantorovich considered infinite-dimensional optimization problems, such as the Kantorovich-Monge problem in transportation theory.  His analysis proposed the Kantorovich metric, which is used in probability theory, in the theory of the weak convergence of probability measures. 

See also
 List of Russian mathematicians
 List of economists
 Shadow price

References
 
 
 Kantorovich, L.V. (1959). " The Best Use of Economic Resources"().  Pergamon Press, 1965. 
 Klaus Hagendorf (2008).  Spreadsheet presenting all examples of Kantorovich, 1939 with the OpenOffice.org Calc Solver as well as the lp_solver. 

Nobel prize lecture
 Kantorovich, Leonid, "Mathematics in Economics: Achievements, Difficulties, Perspectives", Nobel Prize lecture, December 11, 1975
 "Autobiography: Leonid Kantorovich", Nobel Prize website

Further reading 
 Dantzig, George, Linear programming and extensions.  Princeton University Press and the RAND Corporation, 1963.  Cf.  p.22 for the work of Kantorovich. 
 Isbell, J.R.; Marlow, W.H., "On an Industrial Programming Problem of Kantorovich", Management Science, Vol.  8, No.  1 (Oct., 1961), pp.  13–17
 
 Koopmans, Tjalling C., "Concepts of optimality and their uses", Nobel Memorial Lecture, December 11, 1975
 Kutateladze, S.S., "The World Line of Kantorovich", Notices of the ISMS, International Society for Mathematical Sciences, Osaka,  Japan, January 2007
 Kutateladze, S.S., "Kantorovich's Phenomenon", Siberian Math.  J. (Сибирский мат.  журн.),  2007, V. 48, No.  1, 3–4, November 29, 2006. 
 Kutateladze, S.S., "Mathematics and Economics of  Kantorovich"
 
 
 
 
  Vershik, Anatoly, et al., " Leonid V. Kantorovich (1912–1986)", Sobolev Institute of Mathematics of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Also published in the Siberian Mathematical Journal, Volume 43 (2002), No.  1, pp.  3–8
  Vershik, Anatoly, "On Leonid Kantorovich and linear programming"

Notes

External links

  (With additional photos.) 
 
 Information about: Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich –  IDEAS/RePEc
 
 Biography Leonid Kantorovich from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
Biographical documentary about L.Kantorovich by Rossiya-Culture
 

Category:1912 births
Category:1986 deaths
Category:Nobel laureates in Economics
Category:Soviet Nobel laureates
category:Russian Nobel laureates
Category:Jewish Nobel laureates
Category:People from Saint Petersburg
Category:People from Saint Petersburg Governorate
Category:Russian Jews
Category:Soviet economists
category:Russian economists
Category:Soviet mathematicians
Category:Jewish Russian mathematicians
Category:Functional analysts
Category:Approximation theorists
Category:Operator theorists
Category:Operations researchers
Category:Mathematical economists
Category:General equilibrium theorists
Category:Variational analysts
Category:Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Category:Military Engineering-Technical University faculty
Category:Novosibirsk State University faculty
Category:Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society
Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Category:Recipients of the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class
Category:Lenin Prize winners
Category:Stalin Prize winners 
Category:Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery