From Andronow to Zypkin: an outline of the history of non-linear dynamics in the USSR

Abstract:
By employing the conventional German, rather than English or international transliterations – particularly of the name written ‘Tsypkin’ in English – I artfully suggest that this talk is an ‘A to Z’ of Russian non-linear dynamics. However, the period under consideration is not delineated by these two names. Rather, I begin with the Poincaré-Lyapunov heritage – but then concentrate on the way that this thinking was transformed through Russian mathematicians, scientists and engineers such as Mandelshtam, Andronov, Lure and others, over a large part of the twentieth century. (Tsypkin, in fact, receives only a minor mention, as his major achievements were in other areas.) As a historian of automatic control, I draw primarily on applications of non-linear theory in feedback systems.