Controversy and Anti-semitism
Pontryagin was accused of anti-Semitism on several occasions. For example he attacked Nathan Jacobson for being a "mediocre scientist" representing "Zionism movement", while both men were vice-presidents of the International Mathematical Union. He rejected charges in anti-Semitism in an article published in Science in 1979, claiming that he struggled with Zionism which he considered a form of racism. When a prominent Soviet Jewish mathematician, Grigory Margulis, was selected by the IMU to receive the Fields Medal at the upcoming 1978 ICM, Pontryagin, who was a member of the Executive Committee of the IMU at the time, vigorously objected. Although the IMU stood by its decision to award Margulis the Fields Medal, Margulis was denied a Soviet exit visa by the Soviet authorities and was unable to attend the 1978 ICM in person. Pontryagin also participated in a few notorious political campaigns in the Soviet Union, most notably, in the Luzin affair.
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Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)