Kazimierz Zorawski
Encyclopedia
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...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. His work earned him an honored place in mathematics alongside such Polish mathematicians as Wojciech Brudzewski
Albert Brudzewski
Albert Brudzewski, also Albert Blar , Albert of Brudzewo or Wojciech Brudzewski Albert Brudzewski, also Albert Blar (of Brudzewo), Albert of Brudzewo or Wojciech Brudzewski Albert Brudzewski, also Albert Blar (of Brudzewo), Albert of Brudzewo or Wojciech Brudzewski (in Latin, Albertus de Brudzewo;...
, Jan Brożek
Jan Brozek
Jan Brożek was a Polish polymath: a mathematician, astronomer, physician, poet, writer, musician and rector of the Kraków Academy.-Life:...
(Broscius), Nicolas Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
, Samuel Dickstein
Samuel Dickstein (mathematician)
Samuel Dickstein was a Polish mathematician of Jewish origin. He was one of the founders of the Jewish party "Zjednoczenie" , which advocated the assimilation of Polish Jews....
, Stefan Banach
Stefan Banach
Stefan Banach was a Polish mathematician who worked in interwar Poland and in Soviet Ukraine. He is generally considered to have been one of the 20th century's most important and influential mathematicians....
, Stefan Bergman
Stefan Bergman
Stefan Bergman was a Polish-born American mathematician whose primary work was in complex analysis. He is best known for the kernel function he discovered while at Berlin University in 1922. This function is known today as the Bergman kernel...
, Marian Rejewski
Marian Rejewski
Marian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...
, Stanisław Zaremba and Witold Hurewicz
Witold Hurewicz
Witold Hurewicz was a Polish mathematician.- Early life and education :Witold Hurewicz was born to a Jewish family in Łódź, Russian Empire ....
.
Żorawski's main interests were invariants of differential forms, integral invariants of Lie groups, differential geometry and fluid mechanics
Fluid mechanics
Fluid mechanics is the study of fluids and the forces on them. Fluid mechanics can be divided into fluid statics, the study of fluids at rest; fluid kinematics, the study of fluids in motion; and fluid dynamics, the study of the effect of forces on fluid motion...
. His work in these disciplines was to prove important in other fields of mathematics and science, such as differential equations, geometry and physics (especially astrophysics and cosmology).
Biography
Kazimierz Żorawski was born in SzczukiSzczuki, Masovian Voivodeship
Szczuki is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Płoniawy-Bramura, within Maków County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Płoniawy-Bramura, north-west of Maków Mazowiecki, and north of Warsaw....
, near Ciechanów
Ciechanów
Ciechanów is a town in north-central Poland with 45,900 inhabitants . It is situated in Masovian Voivodeship . It was previously the capital of Ciechanów Voivodeship.-History:The grad numbered approximately 3,000 armed men....
, in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, now in Poland
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...
, to Juliusz Bronislaw Wiktor Żorawski and Kazimiera Żorawska. In 1884 he completed secondary school in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. From 1884 to 1888 he studied mathematics at the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
. In 1889 he was selected to continue his mathematics studies on the strength of a paper on observations that he had made at the Warsaw Astronomical Observatory.
In the years that followed he studied the theory of conversion groups and analytical mechanics in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, and differential equations in Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
. In 1891 he was awarded a PhD in Leipzig for his thesis on the applications of group conversion theory to differential geometry. In 1892 he became a lecturer at the Polytechnic Higher School of Lvov where he taught mathematics and, in 1893, assumed the Chair of Mechanical Science.
In 1893, Żorawski received a doctorate in mathematics from 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....
in Krakow
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, and in 1895 he traveled to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
to study higher level geodesy
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...
. He later returned to Krakow where, he was named assistant professor and, in 1898, full professor of mathematics at Jagiellonian where he taught number analysis and geometry.
In 1905, Żorawski became a senior of the faculty of philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and in 1910, he became an associate member of the Czech Royal Company of Sciences in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. In 1911, he became president of the Societies of the Scientific Committee. Two years later he took part in the Organizational Committee of the Academy of Geology in Krakow. From 1917 to 1918, he was vice-chancellor of Jagiellonian University.
In 1919, Żorawski settled in Warsaw where he became a full professor in mathematics at the Warsaw University of Technology
Warsaw University of Technology
The Warsaw University of Technology is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland, and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professors . The student body numbers 36,156 , mostly full-time. There are 17 faculties covering almost all fields of...
, while at the same time teaching courses on the application of geometric analysis at the University of Warsaw. That same year he became a member of the Polish Society of Mathematics.
In 1920, Żorawski was elevated to a permanent membership in the Warsaw Society of Science and Letters, and from 1926 to 1931, served as its President. To honor his services, the Society struck a commemorative medal (see picture) in 1931. At the same time, he became an active member of the Warsaw Technical Academy of Science, and in 1926, a full professor of mathematics at the University of Warsaw.
Żorawski announced his retirement in 1935 after 46 years devoted to professorship. Upon his retirement, the University of Warsaw conferred upon him the title of Professor Emeritus in mathematics and natural science.
Both before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and during the Nazi occupation of Poland, Professor Żorawski worked on analytical geometry, primarily in the area of first- and second-degree plane figures and differential properties of real and imaginary plane figures. His work was three-quarters completed when the Warsaw Uprising occurred. Żorawski, like tens of thousands of Warsaw residents, was expelled from the capital and sent to Pruszkow. His apartment, which contained all of his property, including many of his scientific papers, was destroyed by fire.
Upon his release from the camp of Pruszków along with a group of other scientists, Zorawski took refuge in Nieborów, staying at the home of the Radziwill family. After the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
occupied Poland, Żorawski returned to a destroyed Warsaw and lived for a time with his daughter Leokadia Paprocka. Shortly thereafter, the Ministry for Education gave him a small bedroom with a kitchen at the Students House at the Narutowicz Square in Warsaw, one of the few buildings not destroyed by the Germans during the war. There he rewrote the nearly two-thirds (2650 pages) of his work that had been destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
.
In 1952, Żorawski was named a full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was also decorated with the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Gold Cross of Merit.
Żorawski died in 1953.
After his death, the importance of his work to the development of Polish mathematics was recognized by many scientists. A telegram addressed to his family by Bronisław Knaster, Edward Marczewski
Edward Marczewski
Edward Marczewski was a Polish mathematician. His surname until 1940 was Szpilrajn.Marczewski was a member of the Warsaw School of Mathematics...
, Hugo Steinhaus
Hugo Steinhaus
Władysław Hugo Dionizy Steinhaus was a Polish mathematician and educator. Steinhaus obtained his PhD under David Hilbert at Göttingen University in 1911 and later became a professor at the University of Lwów, where he helped establish what later became known as the Lwów School of Mathematics...
, and Wladyslaw Slebodzinski
Wladyslaw Slebodzinski
Władysław Ślebodziński was a Polish mathematician.Władysław was educated at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and then lectured at the Poznań University...
expresses this recognition:
"...we wish to express to the family of Professor Kazimierz Żorawski our deep compassion. He was the first of the scientists of his generation to bring the name of Poland to the forefront of world mathematics".
Accomplishments
Kazimierz Żorawski dealt with a particularly difficult field of mathematics – continuous invariants of Lie groups, and the results of his work have been applied to other fields of mathematics and science, especially differential equations, geometry and physics.The seventy scientific works of Professor Żorawski relate mainly to analytical geometry, differential geometry, Lie groups, differential equations, kinematics of continuous symmetry, and non-Euclidian imaginary geometry.
Kraków School of Mathematics
At the turn of the 20th century, groups of mathematicians worked in the Polish scientific centers of Lvov, Krakow and Warsaw and created the "mathematical Schools" of Warsaw, Lvov and Krakow. Kazimierz Żorawski, along with Stanislaw Zaremba, (both faculty members of Jagiellonian University) was a cofounder of the Kraków School of MathematicsKraków School of Mathematics
Kraków School of Mathematics was a sub-group of Polish School of Mathematics represented by mathematicians from the Kraków universities—Jagiellonian University and the AGH University of Science and Technology, active during the interwar period...
, to which professors Franciszek Leja
Franciszek Leja
Franciszek Leja was a Polish mathematician.He was born to a poor peasant family in the south-estern Poland. After graduating from the Univestity of Lwów he was a teacher of mathematics and physics in high schools from 1910 until 1923, among others in Kraków...
, Wladyslaw Slebodzinski and Tadeusz Wazewski
Tadeusz Wazewski
Tadeusz Ważewski was a Polish mathematician.Ważewski made important contributions to the theory of ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, control theory and the theory of analytic spaces...
also belonged. Thus, Jagiellonian became the center of traditional analysis of differential equations and analytical functions.
Polish Mathematical Society
On April 2, 1919, Żorawski chaired the inaugural meeting, in Kraków, of the Mathematical Society, which soon changed its name to the Polish Mathematical SocietyPolish Mathematical Society
The Polish Mathematical Society began in Kraków, Poland in 1917. It was originally simply called the Mathematical Society. It was officially constituted on April 2, 1919.Hugo Steinhaus, Stefan Banach and Otto Nikodym were among the founders....
. Żorawski is considered one of the key founders of this Society.
Development of Polish mathematics
In 1958, Polish Mathematical Society member Władysław Ślebodziński recalled the importance of the role played by Stanislaw Zaremba and Kazimierz Żorawski in the development of Polish mathematics:Lie Groups
Żorawski was a student of Eminent Norwegian professor Sophus LieSophus Lie
Marius Sophus Lie was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry, and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations.- Biography :...
, the author of the theory of continuous groups (Lie groups). Żorawski developed several areas close to the theory of Lie groups and other theories which were based upon it—in particular the theories of differential equations and differential geometry, as well as topics from the theory of integral invariants (new at that time), and selected problems of kinematics.
While a professor in Leipzig, Lie wrote the following regarding Żorawski‘s work devoted to Lie groups:
Personal life
In 1863, Żorawski’s mother, Kazimiera, took part in the January UprisingJanuary Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
against Tsarist Russia. This uprising started as a spontaneous protest by young Poles against conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
into the Russian Army and was soon joined by various politicians and high ranking Polish officers from the tsarist army. While the uprising failed militarily, it did succeed in blunting the effect of the Tsar's abolition of serfdom in the Russian partition. Kazimiera was captured and imprisoned by the Russian authorities, and her father was imprisoned in the citadel at Warsaw, where he later died.
Żorawski had five siblings, one of whom, Stanislaw, became proprietor of the Obrebiec Estate, near Przasnysz. In 1940 his property was seized by the Nazis and Stanislaw was arrested and interned at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where he died
Żorawski fell in with love with the family governess, Maria Sklodowska (better known as Marie Curie). The two discussed marriage, but Żorawski’s parents rejected Marie due to her family's poverty. Nevertheless, their hopes of marriage continued until 1891, when a dispirited Marie moved to Warsaw and then to Paris. Żorawski married Leokadia Jewniewicz, a well-known pianist. Her father, Hipolit, became a professor at the Institute of Technology in Petersburg and specializing in applied mathematics. One of his works "The Theory of Elasticity", was published posthumously in Warsaw in 1910. Żorawski and his wife had three children - Juliusz, Leokadia and Maria. Juliusz became a well-known architect, often compared with Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
. After the Second World War he was a professor of architecture at the Cracow University of Technology
Cracow University of Technology
Tadeusz Kościuszko University of Technology is a university located in downtown Kraków, Poland, established in 1946 and, as an institution of higher learning granted full autonomy in 1954....
.
Sources
- Żorawski biography (In Polish)
- Zaremba biography
- W.Ślebodziński, Kazimierz Żorawski [in Polish], [in:] Studia z dziejów katedr Wydziału Matematyki, Fizyki, Chemii Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, S.Gołąb ed.,Kraków 1964, 87-101.
- Curie bio