Mobius competition as a resumption of traditions

About the competition of Augustus Mobius, celebrating his 20th anniversary this year, the Trav-hunger was told by one of its creators, a teacher of independent Moscow University Alexei Sosinsky . Talked by Natalia Demina .

- How did the fund appear, to whom this idea belonged?

- The idea of ​​creating this fund belonged to two wonderful Russian businessmen Alexander Kokin and Valery Balikoev. They were my students when I taught at MIEM (Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics). Balikoev was one of my most talented students, but it so happened that he did not get into graduate school - like Kokin, after graduation, he began (very successfully) to do business. However, I continued to communicate with them, we regularly met, played four of the tennis: Olya Barashkova, the wife of Sasha Kokina, was a high -class tennis player. Our friendship is still preserved.

In 1997, Alexander and Valery decided to resume the wonderful Russian tradition of industrialists or businessmen, which began somewhere in the second half of the 19th century, when they spent a significant part of the money earned on charity. Now there are not so few rich people spending money on charity, and twenty years ago there were units. Alexander Kokin and Valery Balikoev were one of the first, although at that moment their income level was incomparable with the incomes of the "new Russian" era.

The idea of ​​the competition was originally modest: to arrange a competition of scientific works of graduate students and students at an independent university. Its format is very simple: a student or graduate student submits one work in writing. This work can be already published or unpublished, it can even be handwritten. The received work is considered the jury of the competition. Its members either write reviews of these works themselves, or send them to a review.

After that, the jury selects a certain number of finalists who are invited to the final oral tour. It happens in such a way. In Moscow, in the conference hall of an independent Moscow University, finalists make twenty-minute reports on their work in the presence of the jury. The jury ask questions during the report and ten minutes after the end of the report. After the performance of all the finalists, the jury selects the winner or winners.

The competition, starting within the framework of an independent university, expanded throughout Moscow the next year, then to St. Petersburg and, finally, throughout Russia. The number of bonuses increased, and we divided the competition by two: separate nominations “Students” and “Students and graduate students” arose. After 2006, there are many winners: 1, 2 and 3 graduate students, 1 and 2 prizes for students. During this period, the actual organizational leadership of our competition was assumed by Alexander Kokin, who specifically created a charity fund for this, and it is this fund that pays bonuses to students and graduate students.

Prizes-cash-are paid as follows: graduate students receive about $ 500 per month, provided that they are in Russia, but if they leave Russia for some time, then this scholarship is not paid for this period. Students receive a scholarship of about $ 400 per month for one year.

- Is it in dollars at the Central Bank rate?

- No, we, of course, pay them in rubles, just times are changing, it is more convenient to calculate in dollars.

I also want to note that Valery Balikoev is still a sponsor of the Mobius contest, he pays for all expenses associated with students, and money from Alexander Kokin goes to graduate students.

Probably, it is also necessary to mention the fact that from the very first day the chairman of the jury is Boris Feigin, a scientific secretary is your humble servant, and the jury itself consists of leading Russian mathematicians. Not all of them live in Russia.

This format of the competition has been preserved so far. It is interesting that according to the existing rules in the graduate competition, students are entitled to participate (confident in their strength, students sometimes undertake to compete with graduate students - for a more significant prize).

It is worth adding that the level of review of the work submitted to the competition is extremely high. The reviewers are leading world experts, many of them are not from Russia. We work much better than many international magazines. The working conditions are such that we must get a review within three to four weeks, and we usually succeed.

- What is the competition? How many students and graduate students are fighting for scholarships?

- Not much, because applicants understand that a very high level is needed to win the competition. And therefore, about 30 graduate students and 25 students are submitted for the competition. We strive to serve all the best, and, as experience shows, it turns out well for us. But artificially expand the competition using the Olympic motto “The Main - Participation”, we do not want to.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the competition, and we are in the process of preparing the anniversary brochure. Firstly, the history of the competition will be told in this brochure, and secondly, the results of all competitions in 20 years will be indicated: the names of the winners, the names of the finalists, brief information about them, the names of their work, and most importantly, materials about all 16 laureates of the competition from 1997 to 2006 will be published there. We sent them small profiles, realizing that no one would answer the questionnaire of thousands of points.

There are only three questions in this questionnaire. First: where and in quality of whom are you working now? Second: What influence did the Mobius contest have on your life? And the third question: what are you doing now? We asked the laureates to write a small text (from half a page to four) about what mathematics they are now engaged. 15 people answered questions. When we read these profiles, we were shocked.

It turned out that, firstly, all the winners, without exception, are very successful people. All of them defended candidate dissertations and occupy high positions in leading institutes and universities in Russia and abroad. But most of all we were shocked and surprised that of these 16 people 12 are currently working in Russia. Before summing up the results of our questionnaire, I was sure that if a third remained, then it was already good. But it turned out that more than half remained.

Moreover, of those who have the main position abroad, three come to Russia all the time and actively work here. One of them is Viktor Klepsyn from CNRS. Many people think that its main place of work is in Russia, because here it happens more often than in France, where its main position is.

What else can we say about our laureates? I will immediately start with the only person who did not become a professional mathematician-research, this is Sergey Chulkov. He won in 2003. After that, he turned out to be a graduate student at Askold Khovansky, an outstanding Russian mathematician who works in Canada, but often happens in Moscow.

So Chulkov defended his thesis, back in Russia. Khovansky was very pleased with his work, but Chulkov quit research mathematics and is now the deputy director of Ingosstrakh LLC for some special insurance there. He made a career in financial mathematics.

The names of some winners are well known to all of you. Alexander Kuznetsov - our first winner (1997). After the Mobius Prize, he began to collect all the bonuses that only exist. He won the Delina competition and received the Delievsky scholarship. He received the award of the best young European mathematician of the European mathematical society.

- He also received the State Prize.

- Yes, I received the state aid that Medvedev personally handed him. This is not just state aid in mathematics, it is state -owned by the best young scientists in all disciplines. There are all these awards three or five.

By the way, it is interesting and very well speaks of Kuznetsov himself (by the way, a large father) that he spent part of the money received on the 2009 contest, and the scholarships received 12 graduate students. He works in Mian, in glass.

The laureate of the second competition of 1998, Vladlen Timorin defended his thesis in Canada near Khovansky. Now he is the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics in the Higher School of Economics.

1999 laureate Alexander Buftutov - a man who gathered a huge number of titles and awards works in four or five places, but considers his main position to the glass. The 2000 Prize was divided among themselves by Sergey Melikhov and Sergey Shadrin. Melikhov - in Miana, and Shadrin - in Amsterdam.

Anna Ershler, the only girl - the winner of the competition, has become a 2001 laureate, now she works in Lyon. As far as I understand, Anna lost touch with Russia, she has not yet responded to our profile, and I think that she will not answer, somehow she is no longer interested in all this. I must say that she never took advantage of the victory in the Mobius contest, because she immediately went abroad and never received this scholarship. Therefore, the fact that she does not respond to our questionnaire is quite natural.

Viktor Klepsyn, which I already spoke, and Leonid Rybnikov, was divided by the 2002 Mobius Prize of the 2002 Prize. Victor is a leading researcher at CNRS in the city of Lyon in France. Leonid is an employee of the International Laboratory of Theory of Performances and Mathematical Physics at the Faculty of Higher School of Mathematics, and also works in IPPI RAS.

Many of our winners work in HSE, ITEF and other leading universities and institutes. One of the prize -winners of 2014 Oleg Karpenkov, my former student, works in Liverpool, but very often happens in Moscow and is actively involved in Moscow mathematical life.

2005 laureate Alexander Gayfullin, perhaps the strongest of all the winners of the competition. Only Alexander Kuznetsov can compete with him. I think Gaifullin will soon enter the short list on the Fields medal. He is a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, as well as Kuznetsov. He is the only one who remained at Moscow State University - besides him, no one remained at Moscow State University from our laureates. Alexander Gayfullin - Patriot of Moscow State University and very seriously works there at the department of S.P. Novikov and V. M. Bukhtabar. We lured it into an independent university in every possible way, while we were not able to, but we manage to lure him to our summer school “Modern Mathematics”.

I would also like to say about Fedor Petrov, who received the third place in 2005. He remained in St. Petersburg, this is a wonderful mathematician and, as far as I know, works in the rapidly gaining power of the bachelor's power of Stanislav Smirnov at St. Petersburg State University.

The laureate of the 2006 competition was Ivan Losev. I want to say about him separately. He is not a Russian at all, he from Belarus, studied at an independent Moscow University, won contests and generally wanted to stay in graduate school in Russia, but our wonderful migration organs did not extend his visa.

- Belarusus did not extend the visa?

-Alas, he could not stay in Russia, went to graduate school in the United States, and now he is a leading professor at the Northeastern University in Boston, but retains close ties with an independent university, almost every year comes to a summer school.

Returning to the list of the first laureates of the competition, I would like to pay attention to another wonderful result. On the one hand, almost all of our winners succeeded in life, everyone, except for one, became research scientists in mathematics, and twelve of them constantly live in Russia.

As I said, in the questionnaire sent to the laureates, we asked how the Mobius contest for their lives influenced. Almost all answers were written on almost the same template: “Firstly, this allowed me to believe in my strength. And secondly, this allowed me to engage in mathematics and not to waste time on private lessons, tutoring, and drawing up projects for grants. ” Some directly say: "This allowed me to graduate from graduate school, without it I could not."

Many say that the Mobius contest made it possible to free time for mathematics from any side ways to make money, while others emphasize that our competition has a very successful format, it just needs to submit a scientific article on it. Laureates note that our competition is seriously different from other grant competitions. Usually you need to write a project, this is a huge scribble, and then you need to report for this - also a huge writing, and here - no bureaucracy, took a job and sent it, and is ready. We are very pleased that the laureates noted this circumstance. I believe that such a simple requirement for the application is a very smart move on our part.

And to the third question: "What mathematics are you doing now?" - We received a lot of interesting answers. Many respondents complain that they are engaged in such a diverse section of mathematics that they find it difficult to fit on four pages.

So, Sergey Melikhov refused to answer this question, he briefly described to me in a personal letter what he was doing, and I suggested that he publish this short answer if he did not mind. He said that he is fundamentally against, and sent a bright and very interesting text on one of his topics.

Such a variety of interests of our laureates is rather not a merit, but a characteristic of the Mobius contest. After all, mathematicians who teach at an independent university and are part of the jury of the competition are also not narrow specialists, but are engaged in many areas of mathematics.

- Thanks for the interview.

Alexey Sosinsky
Talked by Natalia Demina

See the details about the competition and laureates on the website www.moebiuscontest.ru