Aleksandr Gelfond made significant contributions to the theory of transcendental numbers and the theory of interpolation and approximation of the functions of a complex variable. He established the transcendental character of any number of the form a:ssb:ks, where ais an algebraic number different from 0 or 1 and b is any irrational algebraic number, which is now known as Gelfond's theorem.

Gelfond was born in St. Petersburg (later Leningrad); his father was a physician who also dabbled in philosophy. Gelfond entered Moscow University in 1924 and completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics in 1927. He pursued postgraduate studies from 1927 to 1930 under the direction of A.J. Khintchine and V.V. Stepanov.

Gelfond's first teaching assignment was at the Moscow Technological College. He quickly won a more prestigious appointment at Moscow University, where he began teaching mathematics in 1931. He became a professor of mathematics in 1931, a position he held until...