In Memory of A. A. Friedman

A. F. Gavrilov.

Several months have already passed since the untimely death of A. A. Friedman. His activity, astonishing in its brilliance, variety, and intensity, has already received appraisal in a number of articles published in almost all Russian journals and in several foreign ones (for example, Nature in England, Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik in Germany). The Leningrad scientific societies—the Physico-Mathematical and the Physico-Chemical, of which the deceased was an active member—devoted a special joint meeting to his memory: four reports were devoted to summarizing the theoretical (mathematical and physical) works of the deceased. The Main Geophysical Observatory, the Geographical Society, the Society of Lovers of World Studies, and others summarized at their meetings the results of A. A.’s work in the subjects within their purview.

Truly, a life that gave so much to its 37-year-old bearer promised much!

A. A. Friedman was born in 1888; he graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1910, already having 2 printed works and a gold medal for an essay on a topic proposed by the faculty. In 15 years (1910–1925) A. A. printed another 46 works, relating, at first glance, to questions of mathematics, theoretical mechanics, physics, meteorology, and aeronautics that are very little connected with one another.

In reality, however, all these works are united by a very clear integral plan, in which mathematics solved and posed problems for meteorology and aerology, while these latter sciences provided excellent examples and experimental illustrations for mathematical propositions. The study of the atmosphere, begun by A. A. at the Pavlovsk Observatory, brought him closer to aviation; aviation brought him closer to technology in general, and to military technology in particular. Beginning work in a new field, A. A. very quickly outgrows the stage of amateurish familiarity, and very quickly becomes not only a genuine specialist, but a leading specialist in that field.

Friends of the deceased had more than one occasion to be amazed at how astonishingly well A. A. was able not only to remain himself in various, often very difficult circumstances of his scientific, practical, and public life, but also—most importantly—at how he mastered this life, how, using the material that life gave him, he constructed it according to his own wishes.

A mathematician by education and talent, both in youth and in mature years he burned with the desire to apply the mathematical apparatus to the study of nature. Service at the Pavlovsk Aerological Observatory (1912–1913), which took so much of his time and strength, never weighed upon him.

The application of aerology to aviation in wartime conditions required a complex apparatus, in the form of a dense network of stations observing the atmosphere. There was no such network. A. A. created such a network at the front, undeterred either by the lack of people to carry out observations or by the lack of instruments. Infecting his co-workers with his overflowing energy, A. A. set up courses for the training of observers, found funds for the purchase and even the construction of instruments, and involved ever new people in the execution of his tasks. Some of these people did not justify his trust and caused A. A. severe troubles; others grasped his ideas, continued and developed his initiatives.

The need for instruments for aerology and, especially, for aeronautics grew as the inertia of the aviation authorities and of the pilots themselves was overcome. In Russia such instruments were not allocated. Nor were there factories that could take an order for quantities of these delicate instruments sufficient for practice. Moreover, the theory of these instruments was unknown in Russia. There were also no specialists capable of designing and building such instruments.

A. A. boldly undertook the construction of a factory for aviation measuring instruments. Although he himself had never engaged either in applied mechanics or in factory work, he immersed himself in the study of a new field for him. He surrounded himself with collaborators who, together with him, studied the new branch of production; he consulted prominent engineers on questions that already had technical solutions, and boldly acted in his own way on new questions.

I am very closely acquainted with A. A.’s technical activity, and I could never cease marveling at the astonishing intuition that prompted him to the correct solution in new questions.

“A talented person,” A. A. once said about one of our mutual acquaintances, “knows without having studied.” This excellent formula explains much in A. A.’s activity. It is not his fault that the enterprise he conceived and began did not develop broadly enough during his lifetime.

Youth sets tasks; mature age solves them. A. A. was not granted mature age. We who remain have lost no less by this than he who has departed.

The wreath of necrological articles about the deceased did not contain, so far as I know, a page describing his distinctive technical activity. Let this note, then, be that page. May the days of TsANS and of Aviapribor (the Central Aeronautical Station and the Aviapribor Factory), so memorable to all their participants, shed at least a little light for others as well—those who did not know A. A., but who are able to love and value a great man.