Petr Vopěnka

Petr Vopěnka ( born May 16, 1935 in Prague) is a Czech mathematician who deals with set theory, mathematical logic, philosophy of mathematics and history of mathematics.

Life

Vopěnka grew up in Dolni Kralovice and went into Ledeč nad Sázavou to high school. From 1953 to 1958 he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Prague, where he taught afterwards. In 1962, he was there with Eduard Čech and Ladislav Rieger PhD (Candidate items) and 1967 Habilitation ( PhD after the Russian system ). From 1964 he was a lecturer and he became a professor at the Charles University ( appointed by the Academic Council of the University ) in 1968, but could for political reasons after the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1990 taking up his professorship. In 1967 he became head of the newly founded Department of mathematical logic at the University, which was disbanded in 1970, and 1966 to 1969 he was Vice Dean of the Faculty of mathematics and physics. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was politically out of favor. He could stay at the Charles University (among other things thanks to the intervention of the Russian mathematician Pavel Sergeyevich Alexandrov ), where he was head of a school of mathematical logicians, but could congresses abroad (even in Poland) do not attend and was in his contacts with foreign mathematicians limited. After the fall of 1990, he was vice-rector of Charles University and 1990 to 1992 he was Minister of Education of the Czechoslovak Republic. From 1992 he was head of the newly founded Department of Mathematical Logic, Charles University, which existed until 2000, when Vopěnka retired and became Professor Emeritus Charles University. By 2009, he taught at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University Ústí nad Labem and then in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.

In 1998 he received the Medal of Merit by President Václav Havel. In 1970 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice ( The theory of semi- sets).

Mid-1960s, he led independently by Dana Scott and Robert Solovay a Boolean -valued models of set theory.

It was the early 1970s, the founder of alternatives set theory, with alternatively refers to the classical Cantor's set theory. He also studied since the 1970s and 1980s, increasingly with the philosophy of mathematics, being influenced by Edmund Husserl. He organized in the 1980s, a philosophical seminar at the Charles University, where he gave also officially banished philosophers access. Later he turned to the history of mathematics. He translated classical mathematical works, for example, of Al- Khwarizmi and Euclid into Czech.

His doctoral include Thomas Jech, Karel Hrbáček and Petr Hájek.

Writings

• Mathematics in the alternative set theory, Teubner 1979
• Introduction to Mathematics in the alternative set theory, Bratislava 1989
• Petr Hájek with The theory of semi Sets, North Holland 1972
• Podivuhodný květ Českého Baroka ( The remarkable flowering of Czech Baroque ), 1998
• Meditace o zakladech Vedy ( Meditations on the foundations of science ), 2001
• Uhelny came Evropské vzdelanosti a Vedy (Eckstein European scholarship and science ), 2000