Henryk Niewodniczanski
Encyclopedia
Henryk Niewodniczański was a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

, professor at the Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....

 and the creator and director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Cracow.

He graduated from the Stefan Batory University in Wilno (then in Poland) in 1924 and in 1926 received his PhD from the same university.
In 1927 he was awarded a fellowship at Tübingen University.
At that time his main field of interest was optics of metals and molecular optics. By studying the influence of the magnetic field on the fluorescence of mercury vapour he discovered magnetic dipole radiation.
In 1934 as a fellow of Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...

 Niewodniczański worked in the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 Mond Laboratory and in the Cavendish Laboratory
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory....

 in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

.

On his return to Poland in 1937 Niewodniczański worked first at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
Adam Mickiewicz University is one of the major Polish universities, located in the city of Poznań in western Poland. It opened on May 7, 1919, and since 1955 has carried the name of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.-History:...

 and later in Vilnius where he was the Chair
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of Experimental Physics at the Stefan Batory University. After the war he obtained the Chair of Experimental Physics at the Jagellonian University in Cracow.

His interest in atomic optics and nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...

 led him to a flourishing development of these branches of physics in Cracow. Niewodniczański was also an excellent organizer. In 1955 he created the Institute of Nuclear Physics, with a Soviet-made
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 U-120 cyclotron
Cyclotron
In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction...

as the main research tool.

As the director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and of the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian University, Niewodniczański was the initiator of the majority of the research carried out in these two institutes. He assembled a group of young scientists who, undaunted by difficult conditions, built with him the necessary equipment and under his inspiration began research works.

In 1988, twenty years after his death, the Institute of Nuclear Physics he created was renamed The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics.

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