Andrea Razmadze

Biography

Andrea Razmadze was the son of Mikhail Gavrilovich Razmadze, a railway worker, and Nino Georgievna Nodia. He graduated from Kutaisi nonclassical secondary school in 1906 (where Public School #41 has been renamed for him ), then studied at Moscow University, earning a Diploma in 1910, and then a Masters in 1917 while teaching at local classical and secondary schools. At the invitation of the university, he briefly stayed in Moscow University to teach mathematics in 1917, but soon left to become one of the founders of Tbilisi University. Though he died just 11 years later, during his time there he greatly expanded Georgian mathematical terminology by publishing three textbooks in that language, He also founded the Georgian Mathematical Union on 21 February 1923 and was its first president; this institution lapsed on his death, but was reorganized from 1962 to the present. He is most famous for his work in the calculus of variations, where he discovered an efficient method for finding the extrema of integral functions, and a comprehensive theory for finding the extrema of discontinuous ("angular") functions that can be represented by a finite number of curves. for which he was awarded a Sc.D. by the Sorbonne.