Bronislaw knaster biography

He served as a corporal stretcher-bearer until November and was later decorated with the Legion Cross by Marshall Piludski. He paid a heavy price, however, for he contracted a rare form of malaria which caused him almost unbearable physical problems for ten years. Back at the University of Warsaw, Knaster continued to undertake research advised by Stefan Mazurkiewicz and soon published his first papers.

These papers were, respectively, in the second and the third volumes of the new Polish journal Fundamenta Mathematicae. Knaster was interested in continua, defined technically as compact connected metric sets. Janusz Charatonik writes [ 5 ] :- The first curiosities in the structure of continua were observed in by L E J Brouwer who constructed the first example of an indecomposable continuum, i.

Two years later, Z Janiszewski announced that there exists a curve containing no arc. Both these examples inspired Knaster and Kuratowski to ask the question: Does there exist an indecomposable continuum whose every subcontinuum is also indecomposable? Obviously, any such a continuum, if it existed, could not contain an arc, so it had to differ substantially from any continuum known so far.

Using very hard, complicated, and purely geometric methods, Knaster succeeded in constructing such an example. This was his Ph. Knaster received his doctorate in , becoming one of the first doctors of the new Polish University of Warsaw. With such outstanding results Knaster's future career looked set for the highest level. Instead of years of triumph, however, the next few years became more and more difficult due to the malaria he had contracted during the Polish-Soviet war.

Quinine taken orally proved to be completely ineffective and the attacks of malaria began to come more and more often, and lasted longer and longer. Under these conditions, it was decided that he would feel better in the south, especially since a few months stay in a special sanatorium near Dresden did not help. In he left for Italy, where he felt well enough to work.

From then on, for the next few years, with short breaks, he lived, hoped to recover and worked there. The malaria, however, did not leave him while he lived in Italy, and his subsequent attacks gradually became so dangerous that over time they began to require that he received treatment in hospital. A pure piece of luck saved him: one day he picked up a newspaper which contained an article about the treatment of some varieties of malaria with intramuscular injections of quinine.

Within a year around the disease passed, leaving him, however, with a severely damaged body and he struggled with his health for the rest of life and was sometimes forced to take long stays away from home. The problems with his health that we have just recounted might lead one to expect that his publication record in the nine years from to would be much poorer that that from to In fact a look at his papers shows that in fact the situation is quite the opposite with about three times as many papers in the first period than in the second.

The answer lies in the fact that, because of his health problems, he was unable to teach and take on the many other duties that a university professor has to undertake. When his health was at its worst, all he was able to do was undertake research. He habilitated in , giving him the title of associate professor. While at this Congress, the Polish mathematicians arranged for Ernst Zermelo to make a lecture tour of Poland in Knaster offered to have Zermelo stay at his apartment while in Warsaw and Zermelo accepted.

Bronislaw knaster biography

In fact Knaster organised everything concerning the Warsaw visit. In his report of his visit, Zermelo says he greatly appreciated the hospitality and discussions with Knaster. Knaster clearly greatly enjoyed Zermelo 's visit and the two corresponded between August and October Knaster wrote:- I have grown so fond of your scientific points of view and of your further remarks and aphorisms that I miss you With his health improving, Knaster had returned to Warsaw in early and began to run his advanced seminar in topology, taught courses, took on editorial duties and other organizational activities.

He became an editor of the new series of Mathematical Monographs , which was founded in We do not know why he delivered Borsuk 's lecture, since Borsuk was certainly at the Congress. We quote from Roman Duda's biography [ 7 ] :- Friends recall that Knaster's favourite habit in the thirties was long evening walks, during which he liked to lead passionate disputes about mathematics but not only about mathematics.

Knaster offered to have Zermelo stay at his apartment while in Warsaw and Zermelo accepted. Knaster organised everything concerning the Warsaw visit. In his report of his visit, Zermelo says he greatly appreciated the hospitality and discussions with Knaster. Knaster clearly greatly enjoyed Zermelo's visit and the two corresponded between August and October With his health improving, Knaster had returned to Warsaw in early and began to run his advanced seminar in topology, taught courses, took on editorial duties and other organizational activities.

Knaster, however, was allowed to teach there and became a professor in the Chair of Geometry, headed by Stanislaw Mazur. Knaster was now head hunted by all four of these new universities and offered professorships. He is known for his work in point-set topology and in particular for his discoveries in of the hereditarily indecomposable continuum or pseudo-arc and of the Knaster continuum , or buckethandle continuum.

Knaster received his Ph. This article about a Polish mathematician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects.