Alexander Abian (January 1, 1923–July 1999) was an American mathematician who taught for many years at Iowa State University.

Abian was born in Tabriz, Iran of Armenian descent. After earning an undergraduate degree in Iran, he emigrated to the United States in 1952. After earning a masters degree from the University of Chicago, Abian went on to earn a Ph. D. from the University of Cincinnati, where he wrote a dissertation on a topic in invariant theory under the direction of Isaac Barnett. After teaching posts in Tennessee, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, he joined the faculty of Iowa State in 1967. He wrote three books, published more than two hundred papers, and is said to have proven three "named theorems".

It seems probable that few who knew Abian only from his mathematical work would be likely to guess that he would gain some degree of international notoriety for his claim that blowing up the Moon would solve virtually every problem of human existence. Such a claim was made in 1991 in a campus newspaper. Stating that a moonless Earth wouldn't wobble, eliminating both the seasons and its associated events like heat waves, snowstorms and hurricanes. Refutations were given toward that idea by NASA saying that part of the exploded Moon would come back as a meteorite impacting the Earth and causing sufficient damage to extinguish all life, while restoring the seasons in the process. Just before he died, Abian said that "Those critics who say 'Dismiss Abian's ideas' are very close to those who dismissed Galileo".