Hugo Steinhaus

Dionizy Hugo Steinhaus ( born January 4, 1887 in Jasło, † February 25, 1972 in Wrocław ) was a Polish mathematician. He was one of the founders and leading scientists of the Lviv mathematical school.

Steinhaus studied mathematics at the University of Lviv and in Göttingen, where he received his doctorate in 1911 with the work of New Applications of Dirichlet principle in David Hilbert. In 1917 he completed his habilitation in Lviv. In 1918 he published the much acclaimed work Additives and continuous functional operations. In 1920 he became professor of Lviv University. Together with Stefan Banach, Stanisław Marcin Ulam and other scientists to Stone House dealt with the functional analysis.

Hugo Steinhaus was a Jew and survived the Nazi barbarism, by starting in July 1941, he went into hiding with his wife under the name Grzegorz Krochmalny and avoided at all costs, to be performed on lists of any kind. In his diary, in which also this time is portrayed vividly, he wrote in November 1945: "I learned that the Ministry had sought me during the war, to help me But you could not find me, thank God. . ".

Steinhaus moved in 1945 to Breslau, where he was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Breslau and was instrumental in the reconstruction of the university. In 1952 he became a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences ( Polska Akademia Nauk ).

Stone House released a total of about 250 works. Among them were popular books on mathematics as Kalejdoskop matematyczny (1938 ), which has been translated into ten languages. In addition to the functional analysis Steinhaus worked mainly in applied mathematics and statistics.

Stone house developed with Leo Moser Steinhaus -Moser notation for very large numbers. The basic for the Functional Analysis Banach - Steinhaus is associated with his name. He founded Studia Mathematica with Stefan Banach (1929 ), and Zastosowania matematyki (Applications of Mathematics, 1953).

The painter, logician and philosopher Leon Chwistek was his brother in law.

Most important work

• Czym jest, a jest czym never matematyka (What Mathematics Is, and What It Is Not, 1923).
• Theory of orthogonal series ( with Stefan Kaczmarz, 1935).
• Kalejdoskop matematyczny ( A Mathematical Kaleidoscope, 1938).
• Mathematical Snapshots ( 1939).
• Taksonomia wrocławska (A Wroclaw Taxonomy, with others, 1951).
• Sur la liaison et la division des points d'un ensemble fini ( with others, 1951).
• Sto zadań (A Hundred problem, 1958).
• One Hundred problem in Elementary Mathematics (1964).
• Orzel czy Reszka ( Heads or Tails, 1961).
• Słownik racjonalny (A Rational Dictionary, 1980).
• Wspomnienia i zapiski ( Remembrances and Notes, 1992 / memories and records, 2010)