Arnold and Stalin

Early last week, via Nytimes I came to know that V. I. Arnold, who is well known (for most of us who are not bright enough to follow and understand his research contribution) for his text book died.  It is my personal ambition to educate myself enough that I can understand and completely grasp his two books

• V. I. Arnold, Ordinary Differential Equations, The MIT Press (1978)
• V. I. Arnold, Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Springer-Verlag (1989)

If I am confident about my understanding of these two books, I will consider my math knowledge to be decent. Before this happens,  I can never call myself a theoretician.  Another ambition of mine regarding Arnold is to really understand KAM theory.

Like his advisor Kolmogorov, Arnold was an important pioneer of mathematical physics in last century.  I guess  Landau, Kolmogorov and Arnold are three most important contribution of Russia which provided positive education to countless number of student worldwide.  Now,  as it is  about Russia, so I won’t hesitate to make a nasty remark. I guess Russia can be easily pardoned for  producing two most important bastards, and monster of last century: Lenin, and Stalin.  I mean a land which can produce teachers like Landau, Kolmogorov and Arnold or in huminity teacher like Tolstoy  can occansionly fail and produce mass murderer monster like Stalin too.