THE GERMAN SCHOOL OF THE AZERBAIJANI SCIENTIST

Our compatriot Messoud Efendiev, a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences and professor, lives and works in Germany, where he heads the Department of Dynamical Systems at the Helmholtz Research Centre. Evaluating his scientific activities, the president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Professor Karl-Heinz Hoffman, said: "We know about the basic scientific achievements of Professor Efendiev and are following his scientific career. He is one of the few experts who have produced fundamental results in theoretical and applied mathematics. And we are very happy that he is with us in Germany. He certainly deserves to be a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and we would be delighted to see him among the members of our academy. However, according to the charter of the academy, only citizens of Germany can be members of the Academy..."

- Messoud muallim, how did your passion for mathematics start?

- I grew up in a family of teachers. My father taught mathematics in high school, which is why I fell in love with this subject and started studying it seriously. At school, math (then arithmetic) was interesting to me more like a game, when all sorts of calculations, like a puzzle, entertain and carry you to the world of numbers. I could spend days solving sums that I found in magazines and textbooks. Over the years, children's enthusiasm turned into a conscious decision to take up this subject seriously.

After graduating from high school with a gold medal, I entered Azerbaijan State University. At that time, the famous academician Zahid Xalilov conducted a completely new course for us - "Application of methods of differential topology in nonlinear analysis". After the sudden death of the scientist, there was no one in Baku to continue this theme, and at the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University, world-famous Professor M. I. Vishik and scientists from his entourage dealt with it. Thus, ending up at Moscow State University, I wrote a thesis under the guidance of professors Vishik and Shnirelman. By the way, it was published in the journal "Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR".

In 1975, I entered the post-graduate department of Moscow State University, and after five years, I defended my thesis. 

- You worked at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR for a long time. How did you leave everything and go to Germany?

- I went to Germany in connection with the awarding of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize in 1990, which was presented to me by the German government. After that, in the next two years, I had the opportunity to engage in research and give lectures at leading universities of the country.

- In my opinion, this award is considered the most prestigious in Germany.

- Yes, you're absolutely right. This is evidenced by the fact that 52 of the scientists who received it were later awarded the Nobel Prize.

Winners of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize are received by the president of Germany at his residence. By the way, in 1991, I was fortunate to meet the then president of Germany, Mr Richard von Weizsacker. In conversation with him, I proudly announced that I was the first Azerbaijani to receive this award, and I was pleased to hear that he was very well informed about Azerbaijan.

So, I have been working and living in Germany for 25 years, teaching at the Universities of Stuttgart, Berlin and Munich and conducting research at the Helmholtz Research Centre in Munich, one of the best in the world.

- You are a representative of the Soviet school. Do you have a particular approach to work with students? Is your method of training different from that of your Western colleagues?

- Of course. And I think it appeals to young people. Colleagues have a very positive attitude to this and even call my method of work "Efendiev's Zugang" ("Efendiev's approach"). For example, during a lecture I say in advance that the person who asks a good question (whether it is good or bad is my prerogative) will get a star (*) from me. If the number of these stars passes a certain number (depending on whether it is a semi-annual or annual lecture course), the student gets a very good mark from me. And also, at the beginning of the lecture I say in advance that while proving a fact, I will deliberately make a mistake in one important place. Those who identify it will get 5 stars from me. If none of the students finds the error, I will definitely indicate it at the end of the lecture. The criteria for the creativity of a student are also very important for me. I prefer to continue to work with students who distinguished themselves in my lectures and in seminars organized by me, inviting them to my home on weekends from time to time and working with them additionally. Gifted students' way of thinking and approach to problems, even if they are wrong, is interesting to me because of their fresh and nontrivial nature. It is very important to understand this. You have to be ready all the time to learn to understand and respect the opinions of your students. It is a particular pleasure when you see how your students become big scientists in the future and a scientific school consisting of your students and associates is created around you.

- Last year in honour of your 60th birthday, the world mathematical community in Munich organized an international conference on the topic Nonlinear Phenomena in Biology, Physics and Mechanics, which continued for a week. Could you tell us briefly about this event?

- Last year, as you pointed out, it was my jubilee. The conference was attended by about a hundred world-renowned scientists. You cannot list them all. But I would like to mention a few names. This is the president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences Prof Karl-Heinz Hoffmann; Prof Henri Berestycki (my co-author), Humboldt laureate and winner of the Order of the Legion of Honor of France for outstanding achievements in science; Prof Jianhong Wu, President of the Society of Applied Mathematics and Director of the Institute for Disease Modelling in Canada and winner of the Humboldt prize; Prof Wolfgang Wend-land (my co-author), former director of major SFB and DFG projects (the most famous projects in Germany); a leading expert in the world on equations of mathematical physics and my co-author Prof Mitsuharu Otani (Japan); Prof Yihong Du, my co-author (Australia); Prof Francois Hamel, director of the Institute of Mathematics at Aix-Marseille University (my co-author); Prof J. R. L. Webb and Prof Charles Stuart who are members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Royal Fellow); Prof Michael Renardy (USA), winner of the President's Award and member of the American Mathematical Society, and others.

As you can see, the geography of the conference covered the whole world. My colleagues from the Helmholtz Centre and the Technical University of Munich said that they were looking forward to the conference and had not seen so many "aces" at the same time in such a conference, representing different areas of applied and theoretical mathematics.

In addition, for the first time in the history of Azerbaijani science, leading US magazines Journal of Coupled Systems and Multiscale Dynamics and Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences dedicated one edition to my birthday.

- This year you received the Feodor Lynen Prize.

- This is a German biochemist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1964 "for discoveries concerning mechanisms and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acids". As the winner of this award, he read out lectures and conducted research work for three months in the leading universities in Canada on the topic of "Evolution Equations Arising in the Modelling of Medicine, Biology and Ecology".

- Success seems to be stalking you.

- It comes to those who truly love what they do, work hard, are not satisfied with what they have achieved and do not waste time in vain. I remember there was such a commonplace idea in my time (I heard that at Moscow State University) that a professor had two gifted students: one was used to solving sums quickly, the other - a bit slower. The professor gave them the same sums alternately, gradually complicating them. And as always, the one who solved the sums more quickly came up with a solution faster than the other. At some stage, the professor decided to give them a very difficult task. The one who solved sums quickly lost interest after six months and gave up. And the other one, who solved sums a little more slowly, came up with a solution to the problem after a year and went on to become a great scientist. This, in my opinion, can be one of the recipes: Do not expect results overnight, work hard and do not stop there. Success is guaranteed for those who follow this imperative.