scholarly journals Polish mathematicians and mathematics in World War I. Part I: Galicia (Austro-Hungarian Empire)

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 23-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanisław Domoradzki ◽  
Małgorzata Stawiska ◽  
◽  

In this article we present diverse experiences of Polish mathematicians (in a broad sense) who during World War I fought for freedom of their homeland or conducted their research and teaching in difficult wartime circumstances. We discuss not only individual fates, but also organizational efforts of many kinds (teaching at the academic level outside traditional institutions, Polish scientific societies, publishing activities) in order to illustrate the formation of modern Polish mathematical community. In Part I we focus on mathematicians affiliated with the existing Polish institutions of higher education: Universities in Lwów in Kraków and the Polytechnical School in Lwów, within the Austro-Hungarian empire.

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 55-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanisław Domoradzki ◽  
Małgorzata Stawiska

In the second part of our article we continue presentation of individual fates of Polish mathematicians (in a broad sense) and the formation of modern Polish mathematical community against the background of the events of World War I. In particular we focus on the situations of Polish mathematicians in the Russian Empire (including those affiliatedwith the University of Warsaw, reactivated by Germans, and the Warsaw Polytechnics, founded already by Russians) and other countries. Polscy matematycy i polska matematyka w czasach I wojny światowej. Część II. Cesarstwo Rosyjskie Abstrakt W drugiej części artykułu kontynuujemy przedstawianie indywidualnych losów matematyków polskich (w szerokim sensie) oraz kształtowanie się nowoczesnego polskiego środowiska matematycznego na tle wydarzeń pierwszej wojny światowej. W szczególności skupiamy się na sytuacji matematyków polskich w Cesarstwie Rosyjskim (także tych związanych z reaktywowanym przez Niemców Uniwersytetem Warszawskim i utworzoną jeszcze przez Rosjan Politechniką Warszawską) i innych krajach.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Osterlind

This chapter introduces the extraordinary story of “quantification,” the perception of seeing things—both the everyday and the extraordinary—through the lens of quantifiable events (i.e., via odds, probability, and likelihood). This concept arose when people learned how to measure uncertainty, through the development of probability theory. The chapter presents many examples of using probability for measuring uncertainty and sets the historical context for the following chapters by showing how the idea of quantification developed during a relatively brief period in history, roughly from the end of Napoleonic era through the start of World War I. This era saw a torrent of mathematical developments, specifically, the invention of probability theory, the bell curve, regressions, Bayesian conditional probabilities, and psychometrics. The chapter also explains that this book is not a history of probability theory but a story of how history and mathematics came together to fashion the current worldview.


1977 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 529-556 ◽  

George Paget Thomson was born in Cambridge on 3 May 1892 and died there on 10 September 1975. His father, Joseph John Thomson, had been Cavendish Professor for seven years when he was born, while his mother (Rose Paget) was the daughter of another very distinguished Cambridge professor, and before marrying J. J. Thomson had worked as one of his students in the Cavendish Laboratory. Cambridge, physics and mathematics were in George’s blood and he greatly enriched the first two of these. Best known for the discovery of the diffraction of electrons, he was a substantial contributor, scientifically and politically, to the early stages of the study of neutrons and to their use by way of the uranium chain-reaction; he also independently initiated work on the still-intractable problem of releasing energy by controlled nuclear fusion. Largely, though not originally, through his service in World War I, aerodynamics was an important interest for Thomson; in this, his mathematical skill was joined with a spirit of practical enquiry, for he flew aircraft as well as theorizing about them. After professorships in Aberdeen and London, during which the bulk of his scientific and public work was done, he returned to Cambridge as Master of Corpus Christi College, where he had been a young Fellow after graduating from Trinity College. Through this appointment, Corpus gained a still vigorous and a far-sighted Head, while Thomson had the satisfaction of guiding new college ventures and the enjoyment of being a superb host in Hall, Combination Room and Master’s Lodge.


2007 ◽  
Vol 111 (1122) ◽  
pp. 473-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. D. Ackroyd

This issue of the Aeronautical Journal celebrates the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Honours Degree Course in Aeronautical Engineering at the Victoria University of Manchester. The following article therefore describes the aeronautical research and teaching activities of that university up to its recent amalgamation with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to form the present-day University of Manchester. This juncture provides a further justification for recording the Victoria University’s achievements.Both the Victoria University and UMIST had their roots in the nineteenth century although, apart from the relatively brief period of the First World War, neither of them was particularly involved in aeronautics until after the Second World War. However, as Sections 6.0-10.0 seek to demonstrate, thereafter the Victoria University’s involvement became considerable. The preceding Sections describe the origins of the Victoria University and UMIST and, in the case of the former institution, the subsequent activities of its staff and graduates in engineering and mathematics which, although not always specifically aeronautical in content, nonetheless had a profound influence on the development of the aeronautical sciences.


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