VOLTERRA
Who was Volterra?
Born: 3 May 1860
in Ancona, Papal states (now Italy)
Died: 11 October 1940
in Rome, Italy
Vito Volterra's
interest in mathematics started at the age of 11. His family was extremely
poor (his father had died when he was two-year old) but after attending
lectures at Florence, he was able to proceed to Pisa in 1878. He graduated
Doctor of Physics in 1882. His thesis on hydrodynamics included some results
of Stokes, discovered later but independently by volterra.
He
became Professor of Mechanics at Pisa in 1883 and then occupied the Chair
of Mathematical Physics. After being appointed to the Chair of Mechanics
at Turin, he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematical Physics at Rome.
He
published papers on partial differential equations, particularly the equation
of cylindrical waves, but his most famous work was done on integral equations.
He began this study in 1884 and in 1896, he published papers on what is
now called "an integral equation of Volterra type". He continued to study
functional analysis applications to integral equations producing a large
number of papers on composition and permutable functions.
During
the First World War, Volterra joined the Air Force. He made many journeys
to France and Angland to promote scientific collaboration. after the War,
he returned to the University of Rome and his interest moved to mathematical
biology. He studied the Verhulst equation and the logistic curve. He also
wrote on predator-prey equations.
In
1922, Volterra started to fight against Facism in Italian Parlement. In
1931, he was forved by the Facist Governement to leave the University of
Rome. From the following years, he lived mostly abroad, mainly in Paris
but also in Spain and other countries.