Alexander P. Levich
Alexander P. Levich | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | Substantial temporology; Russian Interdisciplinary Temporology Seminar |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical biology, Mathematical ecology, Study of time (temporology) |
| Institutions | Lomonosov Moscow State University |
Alexander P. Levich (Alexander Petrovich Levich, 1945–2016) was a Russian mathematician and theoretical biologist at Lomonosov Moscow State University, where he worked in the Department of General Ecology of the Biology Faculty. He founded and chaired the Russian Interdisciplinary Temporology Seminar and developed a research programme he called "substantial temporology." He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Study of time
Levich founded the Russian Interdisciplinary Temporology Seminar, which has met at Moscow State University since 1984, and edited a large body of interdisciplinary material on the nature of time collected at the Chronos web resource. In his programme of "substantial temporology," he sought a physical account of time grounded in the variability and metabolism of systems, arguing that the standard treatment of time in physics is incomplete.
He contended that difficulties in deriving equations of motion across many fields stem from a mismatch between the physical methods used to measure time and the laws being studied, and he called for building a new "picture of the world" capable of supporting new dynamical theories. This search for a substantial, generating basis for time places his work outside the mainstream physical treatment of time as a background parameter.