Olga Ladyzhenskaya-Russian mathematician known for Fluid dynamics of Navier-Stokes equations

Google today celebrates the 97^th birthday of Olga Ladyzhenskaya with a beautiful doodle. Olga is globally popular for her contribution on partial differential equations (especially Hilbert’s nineteenth problem) and fluid dynamics.

Olga Ladyzhenskaya was a Russian mathematician. She was a student of the Petrovsky lacunas’ discoverer, Ivan Petrovsky. She is also remembered for triumphing over personal tragedy and obstacles and later she became one of the most influential thinkers of her generation across the planet.

Olga Ladyzhenskaya was born on March 7, 1922, in the town of Kologriv in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Being the daughter of a teacher of mathematics, she was highly inspired by her father. But when she was just 15 years old, her father was arrested by the interior ministry of the Soviet Union and soon executed. Although she was able to finish her high school studies, she was not allowed to enter the Leningrad University as her father was considered ‘enemy of the people’.

After the demise of Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953, she was able to present her doctoral thesis at the age of 31 and was given the degree she had long before earned. She even joined the Leningrad University’s faculty and Steklov Institute while staying in Russia. She continued to stay in Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union that brought salary deflation for the professors.

Olga Ladyzhenskaya authored over 250 papers to show the methods for solving partial differential equations. She became the member of St. Petersburg Mathematical Society in 1959 and became its president in 1990. One of her works involved studying elliptic and parabola equations used in statistical probability theory. She was also awarded Lomonosov Gold Medal by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2002, just two years before her death at the age of 81, for her tremendous contributions to the world of mathematics.