Talk:Aleksandr Lyapunov

Eclecticology - as you're copyediting this plain translation, I wonder, what is the right English word for a **guberny**. I can't find it anywhere. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 10:06 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

Another thing: Eclecticology you're right. Lobatschewski should be in English form as Lobachevsky. The first one might be a German form. -- XJamRastafire 10:12 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

Can you check the date that Lyapunov's father moved - 1894 makes no sense. Lobachevsky died in 1856. Also check one of the links "L yapunov" with a space in the name can't be right. I'll see what I can find out about "guberny". Eclecticology 10:16 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

In a fact this does make sense. After the death of Lobachevsky in 1856 there became a period of a reaction at the University. And during this period his father was unpleased with the university administration. So, I think a year 1894 should be correct, but I can't verify this at the moment since some Russian servers are obviously down. It is not a "L yapunov", but a "L_yapunov" link, but it is down as I've mentioned. According to the word **guberny** I have only a word gubernator, who is a 'chief' of **?**. Yes, I know, in fact a **guberny** is a higher administrative unit in tsarist Russia. But I don't know if they are still useing them nowadays. I should learn some more geography of Russia at once :-). -- XJamRastafire 10:59 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

The other point that made 1894 doubtful is that Aleksandr would be 37 years old by then; surely he wasn't still staying at home! For guberny every place that I look seems to treat this differently. Older sources tend to translate it as government. In Soviet times this area became (more or less?) the Ulyanovsk Oblast to commemorate the fact that this was the town where Lenin was born. But words such as province or district can be appropriate translations, Particularly in an article that is primarily about a mathematician rather than about Russian history or geography. Eclecticology 15:29 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

To make 1894 even more doubtful: It would mean that Aleksandr's father would have devoted himself to his son's education at a time when the latter already had his PhD. That sounds very unlikely. Also to me it does not sound likely at all that he would leave the university as a consequence of something that happened 38 years before. Even if the changes after Lobachevsky's departure would be the consequence, and he had lived through them 35 years before getting tired of them, the connection would not be laid any more. Andre Engels

Yes I do agree. You're both right. I didn't notice this at first, I must admit. An yet another thing is that at this time his father was already dead, because he died in 1868. (See the article). So I do believe it was a mistake in an x-reference and I suspect it was really a year 1864, when Aleksandr was 7 years old. This is more likely. Okay we'll use a well known English word province for **guberny** then. -- XJamRastafire 16:29 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

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To Eclecticology

Whoah. Everything was red. Nice work. And sorry for edit conflict. I hope now an article is more readable. I've noticed just these points: (But I must say I am a little bit afraid to write in a such huge effort not becoming a subject of a mockery or a simple laugh...)

Edit conflicts are a part of Wikipedia life! How I treat them depends on whose changes were the more complicated.

• Lyapunov had also begun to study this stability in his previous two-years attempts at solving the task. (I would still prefer somehow => the stability (He begun to study the stability in general. This was his new field of research.))

In English one could study "stability" in general terms without "the", but "the stability of something". "This stability" applies because it refers to a particular kind of stability just previously mentioned in the article.

• ...Many times they even didn't dare to speak with him, to aboid showing their ignorance". (=>to avoid)

Just a typo "v" and "b" are beside each other on the keyboard - my error.

• (My general mistake) Yes, in the field of (in my native language we say on the field of - but I can't speak English in this way)

In a field of study, but on a football field.

• (You didn't correct this one - I guess you should). His work on this field is in close connection with the work of Steklov. Lyapunov developed many important approximative methods.

It is very interesting for me to read all the corrections you've made. I should learn a lot from them. I've found somewhere in the net an English article on Lyapunov. And there it was said he died the same day as his wife did. So that's why I wrote this article from a scratch with a little help of Russian x-refs. (Which don't work always...) -- XJamRastafire 17:28 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

After a re-read I fould a few more little corrections. I did have a couple of questions about the last paragraph of text, where your meaning was not clear. "Raptured man" might refer to a person so lost in his own thoughts as to ignore everything around him. "Pretty rude" could mean that he was a person who behaved very impolitely, but it could also refer to a person who tended to be shabbily dressed because he just didn't care about how he looked. Please check to make sure that you said what you intended. Eclecticology 00:28 Aug 20, 2002 (PDT)

"Raptured man" would be just fine with the above meaning. "Pretty rude" would be better said "... outwardly he acted tedious and unkind". -- XJamRastafire 18:56 Aug 21, 2002 (PDT)

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Is "Delaryu" supposed to be "de la Rue" (French name meaning "of the street")? -phma

It would be hard to find out. I've written as it was in a Russian x-ref, so I am not shure of which person Steklov was talking about. Nice you've noticed. I'll have to check it somehow... You can check my translations of French titles of Lyapunov's works, too. That's why I blame Russians and Serbs because they translate western names in their own fashion. Another ambiguous example of Alferov's Puolya for György Polya -- XJamRastafire 18:29 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)