Timeline of Polish science and technology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Contents

Education has been of prime interest to Poland's rulers since the early 12th century. The catalog of the library of the Cathedral Chapter in Kraków dating from 1110 shows that Polish scholars already then had access to western European literature. In 1364, King Kazimierz the Great founded the University of Kraków, one of the great universities of Europe. In 1773 King Stanisław August Poniatowski established the Commission of National Education, the world's first ministry of education.

The list of famous Polish scientists begins in earnest with the polymath, Nicolaus Copernicus — astronomer, classical scholar, mathematician, physician, jurist, diplomat and economist.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw many great Polish scientists working abroad. The greatest was Maria Skłodowska-Curie, a physicist and chemist living in France. Another noteworthy individual was Ignacy Domeyko, a geologist and mineralogist living in Chile.

In the first half of the 20th century Poland was a flourishing centre of mathematics. Polish mathematicians were converging toward the Lwów School of Mathematics (with Stefan Banach, Hugo Steinhaus, Stanisław Ulam) and Warsaw School of Mathematics (with Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Kuratowski, Wacław Sierpiński). The events of World War II pushed many of them into exile. Such was the case of Benoît Mandelbrot, a mathematician whose family fled Poland, fearful of the development of the Nazi regime and the repressive politics of Germany, when he was still a child. From Warsaw School of Mathematics graduated Antoni Zygmund, one of the men that shaped the 20th century mathematical analysis.

Today Poland has over 100 institutions of post-secondary education — technical, medical, economic, as well as 500 universities — which are located in most major cities such as Gdańsk, Kraków, Lublin, Poznań, Rzeszów and Warsaw. They employ over 61,000 scientists and scholars. Another 300 research and development institutes are home to some 10,000 researchers. There are, in addition, a number of smaller laboratories. All together, these institutions support some 91,000 scientists and scholars.

[edit] Timeline

[edit] 1951 - the present

  • Blue laser - first blue laser in Poland (third in the world)
  • PSR 1257+12 - a pulsar located 2630 light years from Earth. It is believed to be orbited by at least four planets. These were the first extra solar planets ever discovered (1992)
  • EP-09 - 'B0B0' Polish electric locomotive class
  • PT-91 - a Polish main battle tank. Designed at the Research and Development Centre of Mechanical Systems OBRUM (Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Urządzeń Mechanicznych) in Gliwice
  • 206FM - class minesweeper (NATO: "Krogulec")

[edit] 1901-1950

  • Czochralski process - a method of crystal growth used to obtain single crystals of semiconductors (e.g. silicon, germanium and gallium arsenide), metals (e.g. palladium, platinum, silver, gold) and salts (1916)
  • Polish notation - also known as prefix notation, is a method of mathematical expression (1920)
  • LWS-6 Żubr - initially a passenger plane. Since the Polish airline LOT bought Douglas DC-2 planes instead, the project was converted to a bomber aircraft (early-1930s)
  • Mieczysław Wolfke - "one of precursors in the development of holography" (said:Dennis Gabor)
  • LWS - an abbreviation name used by Polish aircraft manufacturer (1936-1939)
  • PZL - an abbreviation name used by Polish aerospace manufacturers (1928-present)
  • RWD - an abbreviation name used by Polish aircraft manufacturer (1920-1940)

[edit] 1851-1900

  • Zygmunt Florenty Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski - the first to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state (not, as had been the case up to then, in a dynamic state in the transitional form as vapour) (1833)

[edit] 1801-1850

  • Ignacy Domeyko - geologist and mineralogist, a geological map of Chile, describing the Jurassic rock formations, and discovered deposits of a rare mineral (1846)

[edit] 1751-1800

[edit] 1601-1650

  • Jan Heweliusz was an outstanding astronomer who published the earliest exact maps of the moon and the most complete star catalog of his time, containing 1,564 stars. He was the first to conceive the possibility of a multiple-stage rocket and of rocket batteries. In 1641 he built an observatory in his house.

[edit] 1551-1600

  • Bartholomens Keckermann - A Short Commentary on Navigation (the first one written in Poland)
  • Józef Struś - publication in 1555 Sphygmicae artis iam mille ducentos perditae et desideratae libri V. in which he descripted: five types of pulse, diagnostic meaning of those types, influence of body temperature and nervous system on pulse. This was one of books used by William Harvey in his works

[edit] 1501-1550

  • Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik) was a true Renaissance man — an astronomer, mathematician, physician, lawyer, clergyman, governor, diplomat, bishop, military leader, classics scholar and economist, who developed the heliocentric theory in a form detailed enough to make it scientifically useful. He also described Gresham's Law in the year (1519) that Thomas Gresham was born.

[edit] 1351-1400

[edit] 1251-1300

  • Witelo (c. 1230 — c. 1314) was one of the outstanding European philosophers of the 13th century as well as a scientist who specialized in optics. His famous optical treatise, Perspectiva, which drew on the Arabic Book of Optics by Alhazen, was unique in Latin literature and helped give rise to Roger Bacon's best work. In addition to optics, Witelo's treatise also made important contributions to the psychology of visual perception.

[edit] See also

Poland: Did you know

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/i/m/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology_3268.html"