Bers Lipman (Lipa) (22.05.1914, Riga – 29.10.1993, New York) – mathematician, human rights activist.
Lipman Bers was the son of educators I. Berz and B. Berz.
He studied mathematics at the University of Zurich, then continued his education at the University of Latvia. After the establishment of Ulmanis' dictatorial regime in Latvia, he moved to Prague, where he pursued research at Charles University and earned his PhD in Mathematics in 1938.
He spent some time in Paris and in 1940 emigrated to the United States. In New York, under the commission of the Institute for Jewish Studies, he prepared an article on mathematics textbooks in Yiddish.
• 1942 – taught at Brown University (Providence) while conducting war-related research on two-dimensional subsonic fluid flow.
• 1945–1949 – worked at Syracuse University (New York) as an assistant professor, later becoming an associate professor.
• 1950 – participated in the International Congress of Mathematicians, where his research on singular nonlinear elliptic equations was published in the Annals of Mathematics.
• 1951 – appointed professor at New York University.
• 1964 – became professor at Columbia University.
• 1972–1975 – chaired the Mathematics Department at Columbia University.
• 1963–1965 – vice president of the American Mathematical Society.
• 1975–1977 – president of the American Mathematical Society.
• 1984 – retired.
Bers was a world-renowned authority in mathematical analysis and geometry, focusing on the theory of functions of a complex variable and partial differential equations. He authored 100 scientific papers published in leading mathematics journals.
He was one of the founders of the “Mathematical Research Group for School Education”.
Human Rights Advocacy:
A strong advocate for human rights, Lipman Bers led several initiatives. In 1974 he organised an appeal by participants of the Vancouver Mathematicians' Conference to the Soviet government, demanding the release of mathematician Leonid Plyushch. He also sent a letter from a group of American mathematicians to the Latvian Academy of Sciences in support of Leonid Ladyzhensky.
Awards & Memberships:
• Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).
• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Finnish Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
• 1975 – received the Leroy P. Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society.
• 1982 – awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Mathematics.
Selected Works:
• Riemann Surface Spaces and Quasiconformal Mappings (1961, Moscow)
• Mathematical Problems of Subsonic and Transonic Gas Dynamics (1961, Moscow)
• Partial Differential Equations (co-authored with John F. and M. Schechter; translated into Russian, Moscow: Mir, 1966)
• Mathematical Analysis (translated into Russian, Moscow: Higher School, 1975, in 2 volumes)