Isaak Yaglom

Subtitle: The evolution of the idea of symmetry in the 19th century. In his chapter on "Felix Klein and his Erlangen Program", Yaglom says that "finding a general description of all geometric systems [was] considered by mathematicians the central question of the day." The subtitle more accurately describes the book than the main title, since a great number of mathematicians are credited in this account of the modern tools and methods of symmetry.

In 2009 the book was republished by Ishi Press as Geometry, Groups and Algebra in the Nineteenth Century. The new edition, designed by Sam Sloan, has a foreword by Richard Bozulich.

In 1962 Yaglom and Vladimir G. Ashkinuse published Ideas and Methods of Affine and Projective Geometry, in Russian. The text is limited to affine geometry since projective geometry was put off to a second volume that did not appear. The concept of hyperbolic angle is developed through area of hyperbolic sectors. A treatment of Routh's theorem is given at page 193. This textbook, published by the Ministry of Education, includes 234 exercises with hints and solutions in an appendix.

Co-author: A. M. Yaglom. Russian editions in 1956, 59 and 72. Translated by V. K. Jain, published by D. Reidel and the Hindustan Publishing Corporation, India. The channel capacity work of Claude Shannon is developed from first principles in four chapters: probability, entropy and information, information calculation to solve logical problems, and applications to information transmission. The final chapter is well-developed including code efficiency, Huffman codes, natural language and biological information channels, influence of noise, and error detection and correction.

The first three books were originally published in English by Random House as part of the series New Mathematical Library (Volumes 8, 21, and 24). They were keenly appreciated by proponents of the New Math in the U.S.A., but represented only a part of Yaglom’s two-volume original published in Russian in 1955 and 56. More recently the final portion of Yaglom's work was translated into English and published by the Mathematical Association of America. All four volumes are now available from the MAA in the series Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library (Volumes 8, 21, 24, and 44).

Co-author: A. M. Yaglom. Two volumes. Russian edition in 1954. First English edition 1964-1967

Yaglom received a Ph.D. from Moscow State University in 1945 as student of Veniamin Kagan. As the author of several books, translated into English, that have become academic standards of reference, he has an international stature. His attention to the necessities of learning (pedagogy) make his books pleasing experiences for students. The seven authors of his Russian obituary recount "…the breadth of his interests was truly extraordinary: he was seriously interested in history and philosophy, passionately loved and had a good knowledge of literature and art, often came forward with reports and lectures on the most diverse topics (for example, on Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, and the Dutch painter M. C. Escher), actively took part in the work of the cinema club in Yaroslavl and the music club at the House of Composers in Moscow, and was a continual participant of conferences on mathematical linguistics and on semiotics."

Yaglom started his higher education at Moscow State University in 1938. During World War II he volunteered, but due to myopia he was deferred from military service. In the evacuation of Moscow he went with his family to Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. He studied at Sverdlovsk State University, graduated in 1942, and when the usual Moscow faculty assembled in Sverdlovsk during the war, he took up graduate study. Under the geometer Veniamin Kagan he developed his Ph.D. thesis which he defended in Moscow in 1945. It is reported that this thesis "was devoted to projective metrics on a plane and their connections with different types of complex numbers a + j b {\displaystyle a+jb} (where j j = − 1 {\displaystyle jj=-1} , or j j = + 1 {\displaystyle jj=+1} , or else j j = 0 {\displaystyle jj=0} )."

Isaak Moiseevich Yaglom (Russian: Исаа́к Моисе́евич Ягло́м; 6 March 1921 – 17 April 1988) was a Soviet mathematician and author of popular mathematics books, some with his twin Akiva Yaglom.