RIP Vladimir Arnold (1937-2010)

I was looking at the website for the American Mathematical Society, and I noticed (to my surprise) a brief obituary for Vladimir Arnold, a very prominent mathematician who died yesterday.

Arnold was one of the mathematical giants of the 20th century, and he was particularly important in the subject of dynamical systems (which is the mathematical subfield of my birth and which is still one of my primary scientific interests). You can take a look at his wikipedia entry for some of his many important mathematical accomplishments. Let me only mention KAM theory (the 'A' is for Arnold), which gives important insights into mixed regular ('integrable') and chaotic dynamics in Hamiltonian systems.

Update (6/05/10): I didn't write much detail in my blog entry, but here's a blog entry that has some more details. The wikipedia entry and the links therein also contain discussions of the relevant mathematics.