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Post by Jaga on May 7, 2022 12:35:35 GMT -7
Lets start a thread about some Poles who are known internationally better than in their own country. One of this famous people - is Marian Smoluchowski that contributed to the understanding of kinetic theory of matter - extension of famous Boltzmann transport equation. He also explained why sky is blue. He is celebrated and remember in Krakow, where I come from. He was born still during the Austrio-Hungarian empire and died young due to dysentery. Smoluchowski conducted fundamental research on the kinetic theory of matter. In 1904 he discovered density fluctuations in the gas phase, and in 1908 he was the first physicist to ascribe the phenomenon of critical opalescence to large density fluctuations. His investigations explained the blue color of the sky as a consequence of light scattering in the atmosphere. In 1906, shortly after Albert Einstein, he independently explained Brownian motion.[1] Smoluchowski presented an equation which became a basis for the theory of stochastic processes. In 1916 he proposed the equation for diffusion in an external potential field. This equation bears his name
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Post by pieter on May 8, 2022 9:30:56 GMT -7
Jaga,
To be honest the first thing that comes into mind is Mikołaj Kopernik and Maria Salomea (Marie) Skłodowska-Curie.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by Jaga on May 8, 2022 17:15:55 GMT -7
Pieter,
yes of course. Mikolaj Kopernik, Maria Curie, Frederick Chopin, John Paul II and Lech Walesa are the most known Poles. Everybody knows their names, therefore I did not want to write about them, but some other people who are also important, but less known.
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Post by pieter on May 10, 2022 14:30:30 GMT -7
Joseph RotblatSir Joseph Rotblat KCMG CBE FRS (4 November 1908 – 31 August 2005) was a Polish physicist, a self-described "Pole with a British passport". During World War II he worked on Tube Alloys and the Manhattan Project, but left the Los Alamos Laboratory on grounds of conscience after it became clear that Germany had ceased development of an atomic bomb in 1942.
His work on nuclear fallout was a major contribution toward the ratification of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. A signatory of the 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto, he was secretary-general of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from their founding until 1973 and shared, with the Pugwash Conferences, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize "for efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international affairs and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms."
Rotblat believed that scientists have an individual moral responsibility and, just as the Hippocratic Oath provides a code of conduct for physicians, he thought that scientists should have their own code of moral conduct, a Hippocratic Oath for scientists. During his tenure as president of the Pugwash conferences, Rotblat nominated Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu for the Nobel Peace Prize every year from 1988 to 2004. Vanunu had disclosed the extent of Israel's nuclear weapons programme and consequently spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement.
Rotblat campaigned ceaselessly against nuclear weapons. In an interview shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, he expressed his belief that the Russell–Einstein Manifesto still had "great relevance today, after 50 years, particularly in connection with the election of a president in the United States", and above all, with respect to the potential pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. Central to his view of the world were the words of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto with which he concluded his acceptance lecture for the Nobel Prize in 1995: "Above all, remember your humanity". He also served as editor-in-chief of the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology from 1960 to 1972. He was the president of several institutions and professional associations and also a co-founder and member of the governing board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as well as a member of the Advisory Committee on Medical Research of the World Health Organization. Rotblat was a programme advisor to the BAFTA award-winning nuclear docudrama Threads, produced in 1984.
Rotblat made important contributions to nuclear physics, both before and after working during the war on atomic energy problems at Liverpool and at Los Alamos. This included observations on the angular distribution of protons from the (d,p) reaction, which led to an important tool for determining the spin and parity of nuclear levels. He worked on the medical applications of nuclear physics, and later on the biological effects of radiation. His outstanding distinction is in his work for the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs. He was one of the founders of these conferences, and for the past 37 years has been untiring in his support and enthusiasms [sic] for the conferences, which have enabled scientists from all over the world and with opposing ideologies to talk objectively about the issues dividing them. His untiring devotion to this cause and his inspiration have been vital for the development and continuing existence of the conferences.
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Post by pieter on May 10, 2022 14:40:16 GMT -7
Napoleon Cybulski Napoleon Nikodem Cybulski (Polish pronunciation: [napɔˈlɛɔn t͡sɨˈbulski]; 14 September 1854 – 26 April 1919) was a Polish physiologist and a pioneer of endocrinology and electroencephalography. In 1895, he isolated and identified adrenaline.
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Post by pieter on May 10, 2022 15:04:23 GMT -7
Maria CunitzMaria Cunitz or Maria Cunitia (other versions of surname include: Cunicia, Cunitzin, Kunic, Cunitiae, Kunicia, Kunicka; 1610 – 22 August 1664) was an accomplished Silesian astronomer, and the most notable female astronomer of the early modern era. She authored a book Urania propitia, in which she provided new tables, new ephemera, and a simpler working solution to Kepler's Area Law for determining the position of a planet on its elliptical path. The Cunitz crater on Venus is named after her. The minor planet 12624 Mariacunitia is named in her honour.
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Post by Jaga on May 11, 2022 21:58:03 GMT -7
Pieter, thank you for bringing up the work of other scientists that had Polish connections. I did hear about Joseph Rotblat but not a lot. He was inspired in Physics pursuit by Ludwik Wertenstein who was working with Maria Sklodowska. Both of them: Rotblat and Wertenshtein had Jewish roots but they were quite ingrained in scientific world in Poland.
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Post by pieter on May 12, 2022 9:45:42 GMT -7
Pieter, thank you for bringing up the work of other scientists that had Polish connections. I did hear about Joseph Rotblat but not a lot. He was inspired in Physics pursuit by Ludwik Wertenstein who was working with Maria Sklodowska. Both of them: Rotblat and Wertenshtein had Jewish roots but they were quite ingrained in scientific world in Poland. Jaga,
Joseph Rotblat was a Polish jew and like many Polish jews he saw himself as a Pole. Even working and living abroad he stayed a Pole. I know the distinction between Polonist Polish speaking Jews and the Jiddish speaking Jews in Pre-War Europe. In the scientific and cultural world of the Polish intelligentsia Catholic Poles merged with the Jewish, Russian and Ukrainian minorities. Together they formed the Polish intelligentsia.
Cheers, Pieter
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