Who Was Olga Ladyzhenskaya? Google Doodle Celebrates Russian Mathematician's 97th Birthday

Google Doodle is celebrating the 97^th birthday of Russian mathematician Olga Ladyzhenskaya on March 7, 2019.

Ladyzhenskaya , known for her work in the field of fluid dynamics and partial differential equations, was born in the small town of Kologriv on March 7, 1922. She faced numerous hurdles in her early life including the execution of her father by the Soviet authorities, who called him an "enemy of the state.” Post his death, Ladyzhenskaya’s mother and sisters sold dresses for a living.

Despite getting excellent grades in high school, Ladyzhenskaya was denied admission to Leningrad State University, one of the best universities in Russia, due to her family background. Instead she was placed in the Pokrovski Teachers’ Training College. She moved to Gorodets during World War II, where she taught in an orphanage. Ladyzhenskaya, along with her mother and siblings, returned to Kologriv where she taught mathematics in a local school in the 1940s, Globe Intel reported.

Post the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Ladyzhenskaya received a doctorate degree from the Leningrad State University and went on to teach there. A few years later, she received a doctorate degree from Moscow State University. She died in her sleep in St Petersburg, Russia, on Jan.12, 2004, at the age of 81.

Ladyzhenskaya received several awards and recognition in her life including the State Prize of the USSR in the 1960s and the S V Kovalevsky prize in 1992. She was also posthumously awarded the honorary doctorate from the University of Bonn in May 2002. Some of her prominent students include Nina Uraltseva, Ludwig Faddeev and Vladimir Buslaev.

Google not only dedicated a doodle to the mathematician but also an YouTube video recalling her achievements.

Several people took to Twitter to praise Google for honoring the mathematician.

“If you logged on the internet today, you would've seen a doodle on Google of Olga Ladyzhenskaya. How cool is it to see a tribute to a mathematician known for her work on partial differential equations and fluid dynamics!” a user wrote.

“ Olga Ladyzhenskaya' s work allows us to solve all sorts of computational fluid dynamics problems that don't have pen and paper solutions,” wrote another.