Talk:Lev Pontryagin

Antisemitism
Pontryain was so antisemitic that even married Jewish woman. Ultimate revenge!

Details
Not only doesn't this give any detail about any of his mathematical work, it also omits any mention of his virulent anti-Semitism: see, for example, "An Unpublished Reply", by Lipman Bers; R. H. Bing; Henri Cartan; P. D. Lax; Saunders Mac Lane; Deane Montgomery; Georges De Rham; Marshall Stone; Oscar Zariski, Science Copyright 1980 American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is a letter in response to Pontryagin's statement that he had "saved the International Mathematics Union from an attempt by the Zionists to take the IMU into their hands" by blocking the election of a famous mathematician, Nathan Jacobson, to the office of President.

Reply
It sounds like some people are still angry with that goyim.

And also some people are still envious that this blind individual dwarfed certain self-proclaimed "super-mathematicians" of the 20th century some of whom used accusations of "anti-semitism" as a means of self promotion.

Pontryagin was not an anti-semite (he didn't dislike all the semites), but he did have a problem with zionists, so he could be called anti-zionist.


 * Envious? He was a Soviet perpetuated fraud. Dissidents disappeared over night and if they were mathematicians their work was stolen and attributed to Pontryagin the Soviet puppet who was purportedly a great mathematician and supposedly could achieve many results that require intensive notation based reasoning which he was clearly incapable of.

Reply to reply
I'd just like to add that there are many many Jews who are also anti-Zionist. I cannot speak for Pontryagin's actual convictions (as I don't know enough about them), but confusing racist prejudice with opposition to an ideology which is itself built around a preferred race is very unfair. It would be good to clarify Pontryagin's position about the topic without saying that he might be considered a racist for being anti-Zionist. Was he using the word Zionist to mean Jews in general or to mean the (itself racist) political movement? Anyone that knows about this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.118.21 (talk) 03:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Blindness, a concern about bias
The lede says this:


 * "Despite his blindness he was able to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century..."

My first thought upon reading this is that it is quite possible that him becoming so skilled at math could very well have been promoted by his blindness condition. I have not looked into it myself yet. But if this statement is to stand as is, it seems clear to me that it needs to be supported with a solid reference. Let's hear about someone who has assessed his blindness as a setback when it came to math. And if there are those who assessed it to work as a positive factor in helping him to use his mental faculties more acutely, then this statement needs to be changed. -- Tdadamemd19 (talk) 05:08, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Topological Groups
According to this, the first name of the author is Leon! Which part I didn't understand? Mojtabakd «talk» 08:20, 3 June 2021 (UTC)