Pavel Nekrasov

Pavel Alekseevich Nekrasov (1853–1924) was a Russian mathematician and a Rector of the Imperial University of Moscow.

After the Russian Revolution, he tried to adapt to the new rulers, dealt with mathematical economics (which he held lectures in 1918–19) and studied Marxism.

On the contrary, with some of his writings, after his death he was a major target of attacks against religiously influenced mathematicians, culminating in the arrest of Dmitri Egorov and the Luzin Affair.

In the latter area he made substantial contributions, which were criticized in his time by Andrey Markov and Aleksandr Lyapunov, because he could not present them in a satisfactory form, and even later he was forgotten.

Markov and Lyapunov are today usually called as representatives of the St. Petersburg School (founded by Pafnuty Chebyshev) when it comes to the question of the first mathematically strict treatment of the Central Limit Theorem, the discussion and debate with Nekrasov played a significant role (especially one essay from 1898).