Question

Have you ever hear about Banach Spaces? Chances are, you never had. Yet, they are an essential part of today’s mathematics. Please search some info about the person that first introduced them to mathematics, Stefan Banach.

Answer 1

Born: March 30, 1892, in Ostrowsko, 50 kilometers south of Krakow (Cracow), Austria-Hungary-occupied Poland (now Poland)

Died: August 31, 1945, in Lwow (Lemberg, Lviv), Soviet Union (now Ukraine)

Accomplishments: Founded the important modern mathematical field of functional analysis and made major contributions to the theory of topological vector spaces. In addition, he contributed to measure theory, integration, the theory of sets and orthogonal series.

Stefan Banach, son of Stefan Greczek, a tax official and, possibly, of Katarzyna Banach. Who was in fact his mother remains uncertain. Banach was brought up in Krakow by Franciszka Plowa and received his early education from a French intellectual, Juliusz Mien, who was the guardian of Plowa’s daughter. In 1902, Banach finished primary school in Krakow and began his secondary education at the Henryk Sienkiewicz Gymnasium No. 4 in the same city. According to one of his colleagues, Banach was very good in mathematics and natural sciences, but was not interested in anything else. He finished the Gymnasium in 1910 without distinction. As he felt that nothing new can be discovered in mathematics, he chose to study engineering at the Lwow Polytechnic (1910-1916). His father did not want to support him financially, so he supported himself probably by tutoring. During this period, he frequently left Lwow to build roads, but also attended mathematics lectures at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and taught in local schools. In the spring of 1916, he met in Krakow, by chance, Steinhaus, a mathematician who just got a position at Lwow University. Steinhaus, impressed by young Banach's talent for mathematics, told him about a problem he couldn't solve. Banach helped Steinhaus and the ensuing paper they wrote together was published in Krakow in 1918. Since then Banach produced many papers. Also thanks to Steinhaus he met Lucja Braus, whom he married in Zakopane in 1920. In the same year, Banach became an assistant to Lomnicki, a professor of mathematics at Lwow Polytechnic. Lomnicki served as Banach's major advisor for his doctoral thesis. In 1922, the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow awarded Banach his habilitation (a degree allowing to teach at the university) for a Docent in Mathematics for his thesis on measure theory. In July 1922, he was appointed Extraordinary Professor. In 1924, he was promoted to Ordinary Professor (Full Professor). He spent the academic year 1924-25 in Paris. In 1929, he started, with Steinhaus, the journal Studia Mathematica. In 1931, he started co-editing, together with Steinhaus, Knaster, Kuratowski, Mazurkiewicz and Sierpinski, a series titled Mathematical Monographs. In 1936, Banach gave a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo, Norway. In 1939, Banach was elected President of the Polish Mathematical Society. After the Soviets invaded Lwow in 1939, Banach was allowed to continue to hold his chair at the university and he became the Dean of the Faculty of Science, the university being renamed the Ivan Franko University. Famous Soviet mathematicians Sobolev and Aleksandrov visited Banach in Lwow in 1940. In the same period, Banach attended conferences in the Soviet Union.

From the end of 1941 through the remainder of the Nazi occupation (July 1944), Banach worked feeding lice in Prof. Weigel’s Institute in Lwow.

Banach died of lung cancer in Lwow in 1945.