st
August 15-21, 2004, Warsaw, Poland

Zbigniew S. Olesiak
As it has happened the 21 st International Congress of Theoretical and Applied
Mechanics takes place in Warsaw, capital of Poland, a country which just few months ago, on May the 1 st 2004, was able to join the United Europe. If you make a short walk around the city, you will get across a monument of Copernicus standing in front of the Staszic Palace. On the front wall of the palace one can notice an inscription:
SOCIETAS SCIENTIARVM VARSAVIENSIS.
The “Warsaw Scientific Society” , founded in 1907, is one of a couple of scientific institutions housed in the Palace.
Here the Polish Academy of Sciences found its first seat and a couple of months later the same did the Institute of the Fundamental Technological Research.
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Toruƒ in 1473. He studied astronomy in Kraków
(Cracow) Academy in years 1491–1494, and afterwards at the universities of Bologna,
Padua and Ferrara in Italy. Beside astronomy he studied medicine and law while in Ferrara he received the doctor of canon law degree. After the return in Poland he settled at Frombork. There he served as a canon at the cathedral (1512-16, and from 1522 until his death in 1543) and was writing his famous work.
Copernicus ideas lead to the creation of the celestial mechanics laws by Johannes
Kepler, and the laws of dynamics and those of the universal gravitational attraction by Isaac Newton.
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Copernicus manuscript “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” belongs to few of the world registers within the program “Memory of the World” initiated by
UNESCO in 1992. The aims of the program are the promotion and protection of the archival, library, and museum heritage of the mankind.
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After the French Revolution the schools in Europe, lead by different Church orders
(Jesuit’s, Piarist’s and the others), began transforming into secular ones, moreover the Latin, language common for all European universities and colleges, was changing to the local ones. In the new circumstances the national languages could develop, embracing new domains of knowledge however there was also a big disadvantage, the universal language of communication ceased to be available.
The Union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania, called the Republic of Both Nations, powerful in 15 th -17 th centuries, declined in the 18 th century. In the second half of the 18 th century the attempts were made to reorganize the Country, the first in Europe Constitution had been voted by Parliament, and also the first in Europe Ministry of Education named Commission of National
Education had been organized.
Unfortunately our powerful neighbors, three empires Russia, Prussia and Austria decided to dismember the Country between them. This was done in steps. The first partition took place in 1772, the second twenty years later, while the third one in 1795, after defeating, by the Russian Army, KoÊciuszko’s Insurrection (Thaddeus
Kosciusko, general in American Revolutionary Army, was fighting also for freedom of the States, 1775-83).
A few years later, Grand Duchy of Warsaw had been created as a result of the pact signed in 1807 by Napoleon and Russian tsar Alexander I. The Duchy consisted of a part of the territory previously annexed by Prussia, and after defeat of Austria in 1809, also a part annexed by Austria. The Poles hoped that Napoleon would be able to defeat the three Empires, consequently the Polish troops were fighting, together with French Army, in many campaigns, including those on other continents.
In 1812 Napoleon decided to attack Russia Empire. The immense (600 thousand soldiers) French Army rolled over Poland. Unfortunately Napoleon together with his alliance suffered defeat and what remained from his Army rolled again over
Poland, however in the opposite direction, followed by great many troops of the
Russian Army. It is useless to say that the presence of such huge armies in Poland meant a terrific burdening on the country economy.
The Vienna Congress in 1815 decided to divide the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The western part, called the Great Duchy of Poznaƒ, had fallen under Prussian jurisdiction;
Kraków became tiny “Cracow Republic”, the remaining part, together with Warsaw, was named “Warsaw Kingdom” and had been included into the Russian Empire.
The Warsaw Kingdom enjoyed a kind of autonomy it did not last long, however, and ended with the outbreak of the November Insurrection (1830–31).
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In Warsaw, already in 1816, the first courses for the construction of bridges and channels were organized, while in 1818 the section of Construction of Building and Measurement at the University of Warsaw. The opening of a separate School of Civil Engineering, Ways and Bridges took place in 1823. The first book on the theoretical mechanics in Polish language was written by R. Skolimowski ( “Nauka
Mechaniki i Hidrauliki”...
) and published in Warsaw in 1824. However, the school of an academic rank was opened over two years later, in 1826. The School did not exist long, after the fall of the November Insurrection (1830/31) it was closed by the Russian authorities. The Warsaw Polytechnic (with Russian language of instruction) was opened much later only in 1901.
The fall of the November Insurrection resulted in all kinds of repressions, deportation of the insurgents to Siberia and the Russianisation of administration and schools.
The wave of emigrants directing mostly to France and Great Britain (the so called
“Great Emigration”) followed.
The “Cracow Republic” enjoyed autonomy longer it survived until 1846 when the
Republic was incorporated into the Austrian Empire with the following
Germanisation of administration and of the Jagiellonian University.
In France relatively many Poles studied (1825–1875) in known Paris schools: École
Polytechnique and École des Ponts et Chaussées.
There were years when the number of the Polish students in those schools was exceeding that of the French students.
Most of the graduates occupied important posts in France and abroad. In 19 th century the Polish engineers and scientists had been scattered over the whole world from France, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, colonies of those countries, Switzerland,
USA, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Venezuela to Turkey and even Australia. Here we mention just few of them who became famous due to their professional achievements.
Ignacy Domeyko (1802–1889) graduated from Wilno (Vilnius) University and from
École des Mines in Paris, since 1838 in Chile, a pioneer of modern engineering research, mineralogist. A chain of mountains in Chile, and a mineral had been named after him.
Ernest Adam Malinowski (1818–1899) initiated, designed and supervised
“Ferrocaril Central Transandino” the highest in the world (4768 m. over see level) railway crossing the Ands . It was one of the greatest achievements in engineering in 19 th century with innovative solutions of difficult technical problems. In Peru
Malinowski was treated as a national hero.
Edward Jan Habich (1835–1909) organized the first in Latin America polytechnic
( Escuella de Construcciones Civiles y de Mines del Peru, in Lima, 1876) he was the life director of the school and initiated the scientific-technological journal there.
Habich introduced in Peru contemporary mining law and the metric system of measure.
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Kazimierz Gzowski, (1813–1898) made an engineer carrier in Canada as a pioneer in building railways. He designed bridges, became a producer of rails, founded the national Niagara Park.
He was also a charter member and the first president of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers .
W∏adys∏aw Folkierski (1841–1904) was teaching mechanics and the design of bridges in Polish Montparnasse College . A founder, secretary and vice-president of the Society for Exact Sciences in Paris , worked in Peru with E. Malinowski. He was the dean of the faculty in Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima . For three years he was doing research in Paris. In 1892 he returned in Galicia where he was building railways and publishing the research papers in engineering, Extraordinary professor of mechanics at Lwów Polytechnic (1894).
Rudolf Modrzejewski (Ralph Modjeski, 1861–1940) had constructed and built over
30 bridges in the USA in this number the first modern hanging Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, then it was the bridge of the greatest span in the world (534 m).
In Paris there existed Polish College popularly named Montparnasse School
(1848–1871). Below we cite the front pages of two Polish books printed in Paris in 1873 and 1876, respectively. Both the monographs were published at the expense of the owner of Kórnik Library, and the President of the Societies for Scientific
Aids and for Exact Sciences in Paris ( T.A. Dzia∏yƒski ).
Hydraulics, Theory of Water Machines and
Introduction to the Analytical Mechanics of
Fluids, by Feliks Kucharzewski and
W∏adys∏aw Kluger, Paris 1873
Strength of Materials and Static of the
Structures, by W∏adys∏aw Kluger, Paris 1876
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After the unsuccessful January Insurrection (1863, only on the territory belonging to the Russia Empire) the situation in Poland much worsened. There were new repressions, new deportations to Siberia and the new way of emigration. According to Tsar’s decisions the people of Polish origin and moreover catholic could not be employed in certain regions of the Empire. In Poland, in the schools only religion and Polish language (facultative) could be instructed not in Russian. On the other hand many Polish students studied in Russian Colleges and Universities. First of all in the schools of St. Petersburg, namely the Institute of Technology , the Institute of the Engineers of Ways of Communication (Institut Inzhenerov Putey
Soobshcheniya), were popular among Polish students. Moreover the St.
Petersburg schools employed also a number of Polish professors. This was exceptional in the Russian Empire. We mention just few of the most known professors.
Hipolit Dominik Jewniewicz (1831–1903) graduated from the ST. Petersburg University. Since 1856 he taught theoretical mechanics and strength of materials at the Institute of Technology. He was the head of the chair of Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics at the Institute of
Civil Engineers and taught at the Institute of Electrotechnic.
He had written an early monograph on the theory of elasticity translated into Polish and published in 1910, after his death.
He was publishing also in Polish scientific journals.
Stanis∏aw Kierbedê (1810–1899) graduated from the Institute of the Engineers of Ways of Communication in St.
Petersburg and from École des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. He was most known designer and builder of bridges in 19 th century in Russia. Among his bridges was the drawbridge over the Neva River (1850) in St. Petersburg and the bridge over the Vistula River (1859-1864) in Warsaw (the Kierbedê bridge was destroyed during the 2nd World War). For his engineering achievements in Russia he received the rank of a general.
Feliks Antoni Micha∏ Jasiƒski (1856–1899)
(if transliterated from the Russian F.S. Jasinsky). He was born in Warsaw died on tuberculosis in St. Petersburg, buried in Powàzki Cemetery in Warsaw. He graduated from the
Institute of the Engineers of Ways of Communication in
1877. In an important monograph ( An Essay on the
Development of the Theory of Column Buckling, St.
Petersburg, 1893, the French translation in Ann. Ponts et
Chaussées, vol. 8, 1894) Jasiƒski presented the state of
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knowledge in the field of elastic stability of structures at the end of the nineteenth century. After his graduation Jasiƒski started work, first in Wilno (Vilnius) on the
Petersburg – Warsaw and next on the Petersburg–Moscow railroads. He designed and built several important structures. At the same time he was publishing the research papers on the theory of columns . In 1894 he became the professor of the structural mechanics and the theory of elasticity. Besides he was editing the Proceedings
(Izvestya) of the Institute. F. Jasiƒski was an outstanding practical engineer and a great scientist with deep knowledge of the theory. He was the first to investigate the stability of the compressed diagonals . Jasiƒski derived the rigorous solutions for complicated cases of the lateral buckling and calculated the critical values of compressive forces. He examined the solution of the differential equation for the buckling of prismatic bars, and discussed the solutions comparing the theoretical results with the experimental data obtained by other researchers (L. von Tetmajer,
F. Engesser).
There is a known Jasiƒski–Tetmajer formula . F. Jasiƒski prepared a table of critical compressive forces for various ratios of slenderness of prismatic bars. He has written an interesting monograph “Theory of Elasticity” . His collected papers appeared twice in Russian in three volumes (St. Petersburg, 1902) and after a half of the century in 1952. Few years later his selected works appeared also in Polish.
In the part of the country which was annexed by the Austrian Empire (1772) the number of Jesuit and Piarist colleges was drastically reduced. It took over seventy years before the Academy of Technology was founded (in 1844) in Lwów (Leopolis,
Lemberg, at present Lviv in Ukraine) with German language of instruction. The
University was reopened as a German educational institution. After the events of the Springtide of Nations (revolution 1848) the system in Austrian Empire began slow liberalization, consequently Galicia gained autonomy. The Academy of Technology had been transformed into Polytechnic School and since 1872 most of the instructions were conducted in Polish. The Polytechnic became a center of technological research.
Almost at the same time the Academy of Art and Sciences (Akademia
Umiej´tnoÊci) was founded in Kraków. The Polytechnic School in Lwów, the Academy of Art and Sciences in Kraków, together with the Universities in both the cities were gathering Polish scientists independently of their citizenship.
The fact that Kraków and Lwów belonged for a long time to the same Province of Austria named Galicia resulted in close collaboration between the Universities in both the cities, the Polytechnic School in Lwów and the Academy of Art and
Sciences in Kraków.
The Academy of Art and Sciences ( Akademia Umiej´tnoÊci, AU ) existed in Kraków in the years 1871–1919 . It was founded on the basis of the Kraków Scientific Society.
At the beginning it gathered only the scientists from Kraków, later distinguished scientists from all three partitions of Poland, emigrants and foreigners. It was the main Polish scientific institution during the nonexistence of the Polish State. When
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Poland regained the independence name of the Academy had been changed to the Polish Academy of Art and Sciences (PAU) .
School of mathematics in Lwów developed already in the 19 th century. A group of known mathematicians worked in Lwów Polytechnic or/and in the Lwów University.
A number of monographs and textbooks published in Lwów appeared in the second half of the century and at the beginning of the 20 th century. The applications of mathematics meant first of all the theoretical mechanics.
In the first part of the 19 th century South of Lwów the oil fields had been discovered.
At the beginning the people didn’t realize the importance of the discovery. Only after the invention of the kerosene lamp the usefulness of the discovery became obvious.
Ignacy ¸ukasiewicz (1822–1882) a pharmacist, he distilled the kerosene from crude oil (1852).
In 1853 he constructed the first in the world kerosene lamp and managed to introduce and lit his lamps in a Lwów hospital.
Ignacy ¸ukasiewicz was a pioneer in the output of oil, and development of the oil industry. He founded the first oil mine and applied a new original method of the oil output. In 1856 he built the first oil distillery in Galicia.
On the exhibition in Vienna (1873) Ignacy ¸ukasiewicz received a price for presented there products from crude oil.
Wawrzyniec ˚murko (1824–1889) professor of mathematics, the head of the Chair of Mathematics at Lwów Polytechnic
School (1853–1884), since 1984 at the Lwów University, member of AU (i.e. Academy of Art and Sciences in Kraków) contributed much in the field of applied mathematics.
In 1864 his textbook “Lectures of Mathematics” appeared. It was the first book from a series of monographs in mathematics and mechanics in the Polish language in 19 th century. He devised several instruments for graphical solving of equations and received medals and prices for them (Vienna, Lwów, Paris, London).
The Chair was succeeded by professor W∏adys∏aw Zajàczkowski and next by professor
Placyd Zas∏aw Dziwiƒski – the author of a two volume textbook (Lectures in
Mathematics, 1902, 1908, together about 2000 pages) with examples of applications in mechanics.
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Before we pass to the achievements in applied mechanics we shall present the achievements of two physicists from the Jagiellonian University.
Zygmunt F. Wróblewski (1845–1888)
Karol Olszewski (1846–1915)
Zygmunt F. Wróblewski
Karol Olszewski
Zygmunt F. Wróblewski born in Grodno, student of Kiev
University, was arrested in 1863 for taking part in the
January Insurrection and deported to Tomsk in Siberia.
In 1869 released from the deportation he studied in Berlin,
Heidelberg and Munich, where he got Ph. D. degree. He defended habilitation thesis on applications of photometry in the study of gases in liquids. After the research done in German, English and French universities he accepted the professor position in Jagiellonian
University. Wróblewski brought in 1882 from École Normal in Paris the equipment for liquefaction of gases.
Together with K. Olszewski they succeeded to improve the equipment considerably and to obtain, for the first time, on April 4, 1883 the liquefied oxygen in static state
(i.e. permanent). Within few days they liquefied also nitrogen and carbon monoxide .
Wróblewski discovered also unexpected increase of electrical conductivity of copper at low temperature (-200
C). After years it led to discovery of the superconductivity.
His work on liquefaction of hydrogen had been interrupted by tragic death after an accident in his laboratory.
K. Olszewski succeeded to liquefy hydrogen (1884) and newly discovered argon (1885). Attempting to liquefy helium he obtained the lowest temperature. He received the Ph. D. degree for dissertation defended in Heidelberg, and habilitation dissertation in Kraków.
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Jan Nepomucen Franke (1846–1918) professor of theoretical mechanics
(1871–1892), a member of AU, the rector of the Lwów Polytechnic
School (1874–75, 1880–81, and
1890-91), he published the first
Polish textbook on Theoretical
Mechanics with chapters devoted to the theory of elasticity. The book gained wide recognition and was in use for a long time.
Marian Smoluchowski (1872–1917) was born at Vorderbrühl near Vienna. He studied physics at the University of Vienna (1890–94, under supervision of Joseph Stefan) and additionally at the Universities of
Paris (1895–6, Henri Poincaré), of Glasgow (1896–7, Lord
Kelvin) and the University of Berlin (1897). He defended his Ph. D. dissertation at the University of Vienna (1895).
He was employed as a docent at the Chair of the
Theoretical Physics (1897–1899), next at the Chair of the
Theoretical Physics at the University of Lwów
(1899–1913), since 1900 as the head of the Chair and extraordinary, since 1903 ordinary, professor. In academic year 1905/6 he was doing research in the Universities of
London and Cambridge. In the period 1913–1917 he headed the Chair of the
Experimental Physics at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. M. Smoluchowski was a member of the Academy of Art and Sciences (Kraków, 1908) and Warsaw Scientific
Society (WNT, 1917). The University of Glasgow conferred on him the
Honorary Degree title (1901). The International Union of Astronomers called a crater on the moon by his name.
M. Smoluchowski had outstanding findings in the theory of Brownian motions and in the theory of fluctuations . His investigations in the kinetic theory of gases belong to pioneering and fundamental in the field . He had derived a formula, independently of Albert Einstein, on the molecule path in a suspension in a time unit. It is named the Smoluchowski–Einstein formula . He deviced an original theory of thermodynamic fluctuations, and introduced the notion of the correlation of fluctuations. Smoluchowski was interested in problems of mechanics, he investigated Stokes law and determined the modules of elasticity dependent on temperature he discussed problems of aerodynamics and the heat phenomena, contributed to problems of viscous fluids , and problems of elasticity in formation of folded mountains. He had written the papers on the history of physics, in particular
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the physics in Poland. He had published excellent experimental papers. Thus, it was no wonder that the Chair of Experimental Physics was offered to him by the
Jagiellonian University. In the last period of his life he published papers on the theory of fluctuations initiating the theory of stochastic processes, and the papers on the limits of validity of the second law of thermodynamics and elaborated the theory of coagulation of colloidal solutions. One of the equations is called the equation of Chapman–Kolmogoroff–Smoluchowski.
Besides he published papers on theory of radiation and on theory of elastic solid bodies. He has written over
110 original papers in French, German and Polish.
Skiing was his hobby, he was climbing in Alps, and in Scottish and Carpathian
Mountains. He was a member and the president (1910/11) of the Polish Tatras
Association. Marian Smoluchowski died prematurely at the age of 45, in the result of an epidemic disease in Kraków. His ideas were discussed in papers by Samuel
Dickstein, Albert Einstein, W∏adys∏aw Natanson, Arnold Sommerfeld, Stanis∏aw
Ulam and others.
W∏adys∏aw Natanson (1864–1937) was born in Warsaw. He studied physics in the St.
Petersburg University and in Cambridge in Cavendish
Laboratory. He got his Ph. D. degree in 1889 at the Dorpat
(Tartu) University. He defended his habilitation dissertation two years later in Kraków. Natanson had problems in getting the professorship since he was a Russian subject. In the years 1891–1907 he was interested in the problems of irreversible thermodynamics and formulation and applications in hydrodynamics of viscous fluids. He also was returning to problems of Brownian motion.
The papers of W. Natanson belong to the most cited , from the Polish authors, by C. Truesdell (in the papers with
R. Toupin and W. Noll) in Encyclopedia of Physics (1960, and 1965). After the outbreak of the World War I, professor Natanson with his family spent one year in Berlin waiting for the permission to return in Kraków.
During this year he frequently was meeting Albert Einstein to discuss the problems of theoretical physics. In the remaining years of his life he concentrated his activity on the theory of electrons, quantum mechanics and teaching (he was an excellent teacher).
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Stanis∏aw Zaremba (1863–1942) was born at Romanówka (a village now in Ukraine). He graduated first from the Institute of Technology in St.
Petersburg as an engineer. Next he studied mathematics in Paris (1887–88, and 1889–90) and in Berlin (1888–89).
S. Zaremba received the Ph. D. degree in mathematics for dissertation defended in 1889. After years of work in France he received the position (1900) of an extraordinary professor and the Chair of Mathematics at the Jagiellonian University and moved to Kraków. S.
Zaremba was teaching many branches of the mathematical analysis and theoretical mechanics. The derivative of Zaremba–Jaumann is known in the continuum mechanics. He also contributed to the theory of diffusion and led a polemic with W. Natanson on his ideas. He was interested in the theory of invariants and variational inequalities . In the Proceedings of AU
(Academy of Art and Sciences 1907 and 1909) one can find two papers by Arthur
Korn presented for publication by S. Zaremba. The papers were presumably written on S. Zaremba suggestion. After years the Korn’s inequalities became rediscovered.
On the GAMM Congress 1991 in Kraków one of the general lectures was devoted to Korn’s inequalities (O. Olejnik, Mathematical Problems in Elasticity).
Professor S. Zaremba had written three volume monograph “Mechanika
Teoretyczna (i.e. “Theoretical Mechanics” ). The first volume appeared in 1933, the second in 1939, the third one remained in the manuscript form. In the monograph
S. Zaremba attempted to present the theoretical mechanics formalized in the form of axioms.
C. Trusdell in his “Essays in the History of Mechanics” (Springer–Verlag, 1968) cited S. Zaremba , as the only Polish author, writing as follows: “ Reading the original paper of Cauchy that I had cited but not properly understood, Ericksen found there a fairly clear though special and unemphatic statement of the requirement that constitutive equations should be invariant under rigid motions. I then recalled having seen something relevant by ZAREMBA (1903). These historical sources, and the discussion and the discoveries based upon them, gave rise first to the theory of hypo-elasticity and then to the beautiful, inclusive principle of material indifference formulated by Noll”.
Professor Zaremba was the charter member and the first President of the Polish
Mathematical Society (1919, PTM). He was doctor of “honoris causa” of the
Jagiellonian University, the University of Caen (France) and of the University of
Poznaƒ. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Leningrad), Lwów
Scientific Society, Czech Scientific Society, just to mention few.
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Kazimierz Paulin Stefan ˚orawski (1866–1953) was born at Szczurzyn near Ciechanów, mother
Kazimiera Kamieƒska took part in the January uprising.
Kazimierz ˚orawski studied physics and mathematics in
Warsaw, and mathematics in the universities of Leipzig,
Göttingen and Paris (1888–91). He defended Ph. D. thesis written in Leipzig under supervision of Sophus Lie. In
1892 he got professor position at Lwów Polytechnic School, since 1895 the Head of the 1 st Chair of Mathematics, next of the Chair of Astronomy and Astronomic Observatory.
He was the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (1905/6), and the rector of the during the academic year (1917/18).
Since 1919 he was professor of the Warsaw Polytechnic in the Faculty of Civil Engineering. In years 1926–35
Chair of Mathematics in the University of Warsaw. He ˚orawski headed the 3 rd was teaching many branches of mathematics as well as the theoretical mechanics and the theory of motion of continuous media. He was a member of the Academy of Art and Sciences (since 1919 the Polish Academy of Art and Sciences), Warsaw
Scientific Society (President 1925–31) and the titular member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Many of his theorems and ideas were unknown for a long time and rediscovered later due to the fact that he used to publish the valuable papers “in extenso” in Polish while only short contributions in German. In a mine of knowledge on the fundamentals of mechanics (C. Truesdell and R. Toupin: The Classical Field
Theories, in Encyclopedia of Physics, Springer-Verlag, 1960) one finds the following terms: Helmholtz-Zorawski criterion , page 341, Zorawski’s theorem on relative motion , p. 440, and Zorawski’s criterion of flux conservation , p. 346.
In ˚orawski’s home Miss Maria Sk∏odowska was employed as a teacher. She emigrated to Paris, married to Pierre Curie, and after years of the joint research in radiation became Nobel prize winner, for the first time in physics, together with her husband, and for the second time in chemistry.
In November 1918, after 123 years of nonexistence as a state, Poland regained independence. Unfortunately it was not yet the end of the fight for freedom it lasted two years longer. In 1920 Poland was on the brink of loosing just gained freedom.
The Bolsheviks decided to export the revolution on the whole Europe. We were the main obstacle on the way to realize these intensions. Luckily this time we didn’t suffer the defeat.
The difficult problem which new State faced was the unification of the territories from three partitions. Everything was different. The laws, the language of instructions, even the width of the railroads. The Warsaw Polytechnic, could finally change to
Polish language of instruction in 1915, after the German troops seized the city.
The University of Warsaw was reopened in 1918, practically without the academic
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staff. The scientists from Kraków and Lwów had to help. From Russia a number of professors of Polish origin returned in the native country. From St. Petersburg settled in Warsaw professors Stanis∏aw Be∏˝ecki, Andrzej Pszenicki, Aleksander
Wasiutyƒski and many others. From Kharkov arrived professor of mechanics Antoni
Przeborski (see below). Gabriel Narutowicz returned from Switzerland where he was a professor and the Dean of Eidgenösische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, a specialist in building the water power stations after two years he was elected the first President of Poland.
Antoni Przeborski (1871–1941) was born into a Polish family in the Kiev Province
(Guberniya). Antoni B. Przeborski completed secondary school with gold medal in 1894 he graduated from the
Physico–Mathematical Faculty of the Kiev University with a price for the best master degree thesis receiving a two years research scholarship in the Chair of
Mathematics. The motion of the Dean to employ young
Przeborski in the University was turned down by
General–Governor Ignatyev with the following motivation: “on the legal force of the Highest decision on March 26, 1864 the persons of the Polish origin, and besides catholic, may not occupy such posts in the South-
West country”. In consequence Antoni Przeborski began his academic career in the Kharkov (Kharkiv) Institute of Technology. In those days the theoretical mechanics was being taught in that Institute by famous Russian mathematicians
A. M. Lyapunov and W. A. Styeklov, professors of the Kharkov University. In
1904 Professor S. Zaremba was making unsuccessful attempts to establish a chair for A. Przeborski at the Jagiellonian University. In the same year Przeborski spent four months in Göttingen and Heidelberg. During the stormy period 1917–1921
Kharkov was passing from hands to hands of fighting troops. In the result the position of A. Przeborski also was alternating from that being the rector (twice) to imprisonment and back. Finally, after long endeavors, Przeborski’s family could leave. In the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw A. Przeborski occupied the position of the Chairman of Theoretical Mechanics until the break of the war. Przeborski published a number of papers under his surname spelled phonetically, i.e. in the Russian papers: A. è. è¯Â·opckËÈ , in German: Pscheborski, in French: Pchéborski. He has published papers in the field of differential equations, analytical functions and analytical geometry. During his employment in the University of Warsaw his research was devoted to analytical mechanics. Certain anholonomic systems bear the Chetayev-Przeborski names . He published an excellent and contemporary monograph on Variational Calculus (Warsaw, 1926) and also on high mathematical level Lectures on Theoretical Mechanics , vol. I, 1930, vol. II,
1935. Unfortunately, both monographs were written only in Polish and never translated.
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A. Przeborski was a member of TNW (Warsaw Scientific Society), Academy of
Technological Sciences, Polish Mathematical Society, GAMM, and Russian scientific societies. Most known of his assistants were Jerzy Sp∏awa-Neyman (1894–1981,
Kharkiv, Warsaw, later London, Berkeley, mathematical statistics and its applications, a founder of the statistical theory of hypothesis testing and estimation ) and Aleksander Wundheiler (1902–1957, Warsaw, and Chicago, rheonomous constraints, anholonomic systems , 2 books, Warsaw 1934, 1937).
Maksymilian Tytus Huber (1872–1950)
Huber enrolled in the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Imperial-Royal Polytechnic School in Lwów from which he graduated in 1894 and received the diploma with the annotation “ superbly talented ”.
His first paper was published in Czasopismo Techniczne (i.e. in Journal of
Technology – transactions of the Society for Technology in Lwów) in 1890 when he was only 18 years old. During the academic year 1896/97 he studied at the University of Berlin. In December 1899 M. T. Huber moved to
Kraków to take over the position of a teacher and, after few months, professor of Theoretical Mechanics at the
Industrial College. During almost five years of stay in
Kraków Huber was working on his known doctoral thesis on contact problems of elastic solids ( Zur Theorie der
Berührung fester elastischer Körper , in Annalen der Physik, Vol. IV, Leipzig, 1904,
153-163). The thesis was presented and defended at the Polytechnic School in Lwów in 1904. It was an important piece of work written unaided. Hertz, in his papers, was not able to find the stress components inside the spheres in contact and stated that this would be impossible to determine. Huber in his thesis had shown not only the way to derive the stress components, but also to obtain the formulae in an exact (“closed”) form, suitable for calculations. M. T. Huber returned to the subject and published a paper on contact of two cylinders (joined with S. Fuchs:
“ Spannungsverteilung bei der Berührung zweier elastische Zylinder ”, Physikalische
Zeitschrift, Leipzig 1914, 298-303). Earlier S. Fuchs, on Huber’s suggestion and using his approach, corrected Hertz’s trajectories of normal stress components
(Physik. Z., 1913, p. 1282).
The first of the papers in which Huber discussed the strength hypotheses
(“ O Podstawach Teorii Wytrzyma∏oÊci ” – i.e. “ On the Fundamentals of Strength
Theory ”) was published in Prace Mat. –Fiz. vol XV, in Warszawa and written in
Kraków in 1903. In the same year Huber had written (October 1903) in Kraków one of his most known papers, namely: Specific Strain Work as a Measure of Material
Effort – A Contribution to the Foundations of the Strength Theory .
The paper was published in Polish in the 22 nd vol. of Czasopismo Techniczne in 4 issues, pp.: 34-
40, 49-50, 61-62, and 80-81. Therefore, in this year, we can celebrate the one hundred anniversary of the event. On this occasion the paper has been translated, for the
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first time, into English and has appeared in Archives of Mechanics 56, 3, pp. 173–190,
Warszawa 2004.
R. von Mises obtained similar formulae in 1913, however departing from the considerations referring to equations of the theory of plasticity. H. Hencky proved eleven years later (in 1924) that von Mises’ formulae can be interpreted by the strain energy of distortion, and this was exactly Huber’s idea and condition. In
October 1908 Huber was appointed professor of the Polytechnic, and the first chairman of the newly established Chair of Technological Mechanics. In 1914 he was elected the rector of the School. Unfortunately the war broke out and Huber was called up into army.
He took part in the battle by Rohatyƒ. After a long lasting siege the fortress PrzemyÊl surrendered to the Russian Army and Professor Huber went into captivity. There he did everything possible not to waste time. First of all he learned the Russian language, next he got acquainted with the literature and the achievements of the theoretical and solid body mechanics in Russia. He began corresponding with S.P. Timoshenko and B.G. Galerkin . After certain time he was allowed to make use of the Kazan
University library and to do research. After the outbreak of the revolution in February
1917 Huber was allowed to teach physics in a Polish secondary school and was elected the President of the Union of Polish Workers in Exile at the Kazan section. In the
Summer1918 he returned in Lwów to take over the position of the Head of the Chair of Technological Mechanics.
MT Huber in PrzemyÊl fortress 1915 Kazan 1917, Huber second in the first row
Professor Huber was a charter member (1920) of the Academy of Technological
Sciences in Warsaw and a member of the Lwów Scientific Society.
In 1921 M. T. Huber was elected the rector of the Polytechnic for the second time
(the photograph ) . In years 1925-28 he was elected the President of the Lwów Branch of the Polish Mathematical Society (PTM) and the President of the First Congress of the PTM which took place in Lwów in 1927. Since 1 st of April 1928, Professor
Huber became a member of the staff of the Warsaw Polytechnic. The Lwów
Polytechnic Society bestowed on him the honorary membership. In 1928 Professor
Huber was elected the President of the Academy of the Technological Sciences.
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Huber’s research in theory of elastic orthotropic plates belongs to his main scientific achievements. Huber was the first who derived the pertinent differential equations for the orthotropic plates and discussed the solutions of the problems suitable for engineering applications. The first of his papers in the subject appeared already in 1914. He collected his results in two monographs. The first one was practically completed in Russia in captivity and published in Polish ( Teoria p∏yt prostokàtnieró˝nokierunkowych …, Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego, Lwów, 1921 246 p.), and the second one in German ( Probleme der Statik technisch wichtiger orthotroper
Platten , Ak. Nauk Technicznych, Warszawa, 1929). It was a whole cycle of Huber’s original papers on this topic, published in Polish, German and French in the period
1914–1939. The applications referred to reinforced plates, the plates with ribs, wavy plates, grids, etc. Huber’s papers opened this new branch of the theory of plates.
His papers were cited by many authors (A. Nadai, S. Timoshenko, S. G. Lekhnitskiy,
K. Girkmann, and others). In the decades after the World War II the revival of interest in the mechanics of anisotropic solids was observed, particularly in the problems of anisotropic plates.
It is worth noting that M. T. Huber translated into Polish from the fourth Russian edition S. P. Timoshenko “
1921 and 1931) and from 2
Strength of Material” nd
(2 editions, Lwów – Warszawa, original German edition A. Einstein “On Special and
General Theory of Relativity” , (two editions, Lwów–Warszawa 1921, 1923).
In 1934 he was elected the active member of the Polish Academy of Art and Sciences
(PAU) in Kraków, and next the deputy director of the 3 rd Division (Mathematics and Natural Sciences). He was a member of numerous scientific societies, including the membership of the Masaryk Academy of Labor in Prague.
The outbreak of the war on September the 1 st , 1939 changed the life drastically.
All the universities and high schools had been shut down by the occupants. Professor
Huber became the President of J. Mianowski’s Fund, he succeeded to hide a part of Fund’s property, and to complete the Polish edition of “Radioactivity” by Maria
Sk∏odowska-Curie. He ceased to collaborate with Zentrallblat für Mechanik, he was an editor there. He taught in trade schools, took part in clandestine education, and had time for preparing his monographs: General Mechanics, Stereomechanics
(Strength of Materials) and Theory of Elasticity. As a result of the uprising in Warsaw
(August the 1 st , 1944) Huber lost his rich archive and property, Huber’s were displaced to a camp near Warsaw, and after two month’s of homelessness eventually reached
Zakopane. There Huber was teaching on courses of “technical drawings”. Under that name there acted a clandestine Polytechnic in miniature. Besides, Huber was reconstructing the lost manuscripts, and translating two monographs.
After the war which in Poland lasted five years and nine months the country was ruined, Warsaw, the capital, almost ceased to exist. Poland’s population and territory was reduced considerably. The Warsaw Polytechnic had been leveled with the ground, the Lwów Polytechnic became the Lviv Polytechnic Institute and remained outside new Polish borders. Millions of people, according to the decision of Great Powers, had to change their native places of residence. During the war, Poland lost about
3/4 of its intellectuals and people with academic diploma. Apart from those who
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died during bombing and fights, many were imprisoned or executed by the Gestapo, deported to Siberia or Kazakhstan, and shot to death in Auschwitz, Katyƒ, and in other concentration camps or in prisons. In Kraków the German occupants arrested
183 persons (academic teachers) in “Sonderaktion Krakau”. In Lwów over twenty selected professors were shot to death just after few days from the town seizure in
1941. Therefore the academic life after the war was organized in such a way that beside an old professor (like, for example, M. T. Huber who was already 74 years old), there was employed a group of students, called younger assistants, who under the supervision of a professor were instructing other students just one or two years younger, frequently older. It was rather an exception to find somebody with a diploma, who was less than 40 years old. Many of the students were former soldiers of the
Home Army, of the Soviet controlled Polish Peoples Army, or survivals of camps or prisons. One of the fundamental problems was to educate new specialists quickly.
This was understood already during the occupation when, in spite of the high risk, the clandestine education was organized. From many proposals Professor Huber had chosen the position of the head of two chairs and the Laboratory of Strength of Materials at Gdaƒsk Polytechnic (the only such laboratory existing then in Poland), he didn’t accept, however, the position of the rector. After a tiresome and a long trip from Zakopane, Huber with his wife arrived in Gdaƒsk in October 1945. Professor was very active there, teaching, supervising theses, delivering courses and lectures, doing research, reconstructing and preparing for publication his monographs and textbooks. Professor Huber attended the 7 th Congress of IUTAM in London, (1948) he delivered there a paper and met his old friend professor S.P. Timoshenko.
In February 1949 Professor Huber moved to the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Kraków where a new Chair of Higher Problems of Mechanics, with small teaching burdening, had been established for him “ad personam”.
Warsaw Polytechnic conferred upon him the title of Honorary Professor, while the Academy of Mining (1945) in Kraków and Gdaƒsk Polytechnic (1949) the
Honorary Doctor titles.
He had written 17 monographs and over 200 publications (devoted to problems of general mechanics, elasticity, buckling and elastic stability, theory of vibrations, structural mechanics, aviation and thin walled structures).
Few days before his death the Jubilee book was handed to him, with 22 contributions of foreign and Polish authors, devoted to his 50 th (much over!) years of his activity and achievements.
He was the supervisor of practically two generations of scientists in Poland, working in the field of the mechanics of deformable solids. We can mention professors:
W. Burzyƒski, W. Olszak, R. Szewalski, Z. Kl´bowski, Z. Brzoska, B. Bukowski,
R. Kurowski, J. Leyko, Z. Wasiutyƒski, and K. Wolski. After his death the Polish
Academy of Sciences established a M. T. Huber’s price for scientific achievements in the field of solid mechanics.
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W∏odzimierz Trzywdar-Burzyƒski (1900–1970) was born in PrzemyÊl. In the years 1918–1920 his time was divided between studying and defending the native country. He graduated from the Civil and Water
Engineering Faculty of Lwów Polytechnic in June 1925.
In 1922 he became an instructor, later an assistant of
Professor M. T. Huber. His first paper appeared in 1923, he defended Ph.D. thesis in 1928, and habilitation dissertation in 1933.
Burzyƒski’s Ph. D. thesis was an extensive research, written under Professor M. T. Huber’s supervision, published in the form of a monograph titled “ Study on Strength
Hypotheses” (“ Studjum nad Hipotezami Wyt´˝enia” , Akad.
Nauk Techn., Lwów, 1928, 192 p.). The “Study” was based on R. von Mises approach, however taking into account the results of many experiments. A continuation of the research was published in German ( “Ueber die
Anstrengungshypo-thesen” , Schweizerische Bauzeitung,
94 , 1929, pp. 259-262), and in “Theoretical Fundamentals of the Strength Theories (“Teoretyczne Podstawy Hipotez
Wyt´˝enia” , Czasopismo Techniczne, 1929, Lwów, pp.
1–41). Both papers were written during Burzyƒski’s stay on a post-doctoral scholarship at the Universities of
Göttingen, and Zurich (8 months in 1929).
W. Burzyƒski was also a designer, his arch bridge over
Sola at Tresna–Czernichów was then the one of the biggest span designed and built in Poland. He belonged to Huber’s most prominent students. He succeeded him in the Chair of Mechanics in 1934, as the best candidate in announced competition, and in a short time received the title of an extraordinary professor. In 1938 he was elected the Dean of the Mechanical
Faculty and played an important role war in academic life in Lwów during the war 1939–1945.
(
In 1933 W. Burzyƒski published the paper “On an expansion of elastic potential”
“O rozwini´ciu Potencja∏u Spr´˝ystego” , Warszawa, 1933, Akad. Nauk
Technicznych). This was his habilitation dissertation. Unfortunately the paper was published only in Polish and was unknown abroad. Similar ideas were rediscovered by M. Mooney for rubber-like materials and published in his paper in 1940, seven years later. Nowadays such materials are called Mooney’s ones. During the occupations there was no possibility to get a copy of a foreign journal or to correspond with an author from abroad. In 1944 the Lwów Polytechnic, was reopened under the name “Lviv Polytechnic Institute” and W. Burzyƒski was nominated the deputy director for scientific matter. In 1945 he was imprisoned and spent over six months in an NKGB jail. In 1946 W. Burzyƒski moved to Silesian Polytechnic in Gliwice where he headed two chairs (Mechanics and Strength of Materials). He published
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another significant paper “ On certain shortcomings and a necessary additions to de Saint–Venant’s theory of straight rods ” (in Polish: “O niektórych niedomaganiach
I koniecznych uzupe∏nieniach de Saint–Venantowskiej teorii pr´tów prostych” ,
Wroc∏awskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, seria B, Wroc∏aw 1951, 75 pages). The author dealt with problems which a few later were revived and discussed in numerous papers by R. A. Toupin, E. Sternberg, and G. Fichera.
Unfortunately also this paper remained unknown. His scientific career was abruptly ceased in 1949 by brain stroke.
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The association “Awiata” was founded in Lwów in 1909, almost simultaneously the students Association of Aviators of the Polytechnic was organized with Professor
Huber as its first curator. At the same time the first air displays were shown in
Lwów and in Kraków. A series of lectures on flying machines at the Lwów Polytechnic
Society and in Kraków was delivered by Huber and a couple of specialists. In 1912 the Association of Aviators announced a contest for a model of the best glider.
After the war the interest in aviation increased. The development of aviation without existing car industry was very difficult. Nevertheless, young engineers succeeded in designing original airplanes. In both existing Polytechnics the aviation sections had been organized with the purpose to prepare the specialists in this new field of engineering. In the picture below we see Professor Huber among members of the Association on the background of an airplane placed in front of the Lwów
Polytechnic.
In front of the Polytechnic main building, Prof. Huber in the centre, 1924
The series of airplanes built in Warsaw in State Aviation Works (Paƒstwowe Zak∏ady
Lotnicze) was very successful. The plane PZL–P1 won the competition in Bucarest
(1930), the improved model PZL–P6 won in Cleveland in the USA. The next models of fighter planes went into service in a few of countires. The sport planes RWD
(designed by S. Rogalski, S. Wigura, and J. Drzewiecki and named by the first letters of their names) achieved the victories: on RWD–6 in the International Challenge
1932 and on RWD–9 in 1934 . The model RWD–13 was exported to a number of states including the USA. Original and very good bomber PZL–37 “¸oÊ” in the time it was manufactured could compete with the best planes of this class.
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Stefan Banach (1895–1945) was born in Kraków. He completed two years of study at Lwów Polytechnic School (1911–1913). Banach was one of the creators of the functional analysis and together with Hugo Steinhaus the leader of the Lwów school of mathematics. He was delivering courses at the
Lwów Polytechnic and at John Casimir University in many branches of mathematics and also in theoretical mechanics. He was the author of the textbook on
Mechanics, translated into English. There are theorems bearing his name; the notion of Banach space belongs to the fundamental in the functional analysis. S. Banach was the initiator of the famous “Scottish Book” . It contained the selection of problems to solve and solutions of new theorems. Professor S. Banach was a member of a number of Scientific Societies, the President of the Polish Mathematical Society (1939–1945) and a member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukrainian SSR.
During the German occupation (1941–44) Banach was feeding lice in the Weigel Institute where vaccinations against typhus for German army were being produced.
Stefan Banach died in Lwów on August 31, 1945 on cancer of lungs. In Warsaw there exists Stefan Banach
Mathematical Center (International).
W∏adys∏aw Micha∏ Nikliborc (1899–1948) was born at Wadowice. In 1916 he entered the Jagiellonian University, however already in December of the same year joined, together with a group of students, the Polish Legions, taking part in the battles of the war, and the events of the year 1920. He graduated in 1922 as a student of S. Zaremba. Two years later W.
Nikliborc defended the Ph. D. dissertation at the Jagiellonian University while in
1927 he received veniam legendi in John Casimir University in Lwów. He was employed at Lwów Polytechnic since 1925 teaching mathematics and theoretical mechanics.
Almost two years he spent in the Universities of Dresden, Leipzig, Göttingen and
Paris. Particularly fruitful was his stay in Leipzig on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship. There he worked together with professor Leon Lichtenstein (born in
Warsaw 1878, died at Zakopane 1933) on the problems of three bodies motion and
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the shapes of rotating viscous fluids The obtained results are of fundamental theoretical meaning. In 1937 W. Nikliborc succeeded A. Przeborski in the Chair of Theoretical
Mechanics of the University of Warsaw. The years of war he spent in Lwów. His friends and coauthors had been murdered: Stefan Marian Kaczmarz at Katyƒ in
1940 as an officer of the Polish Army, W∏odzimierz Sto˝ek (with his two sons and about twenty other professors) in Lwów, by the Germans one week after the German seized the town. Another known mathematician Juliusz Pawe∏ Schauder left Nikliborc’s apartment (which was his hiding place) for a short walk, was betrayed by one of his former pupils, and murdered.
In 1946 W. Nikliborc received position of a professor at the University of Warsaw.
On February 29, 1948, he was arrested and after a night in a jail he was found dead on a bench in a park. Officially, he committed suicide.
His manuscripts are being preserved in the Archive of the Polish Academy of Sciences: over 900 pages long text on the problems of three bodies motion, the proofs of the theorems in mathematical analysis, and a text on the probability theory.
Polish scientists and engineers participated actively in the war efforts. Many of them have contributed by improving the weapons and inventing the devices which served to defeat the enemy. Here we present the heroes of two known events. In 1943 the Home Army succeeded in capturing
German rocket V-2, dismantle it and send to England.
An expert who deciphered the electronic system of the rocket was Professor Janusz Groszkowski (1898–1984).
The President of the Polish Academy of Sciences
(1962–1971).
Janusz Groszkowski
Already in 1932 three mathematicians, the cryptologists directed by Marian Rejewski (1905–1980) [the other two were: Jerzy Ró˝ycki (1909–1942) , and Henryk Zygalski
(1907–1978) ] succeeded in deciphering the German
“Enigma” and in constructing the copies of the machines.
Two copies of “Enigma” were dispatched to France and
Great Britain and were used during the war. We can cite many other achievements of the Polish engineers who during the war were working in the West on the development of the armament.
Marian Rejewski
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In Gdaƒsk Polytechnic the initiative of professor Witold Nowacki supported by professor M. T. Huber resulted in founding the most known Polish journal on mechanics. The other two founding members were professors Wac∏aw Olszak and
Witold Wierzbicki. The first issue of Archives de Mecanique Apliquée (Polish title
Archiwum Mechaniki Stosowanej ) appeared in April 1949. For the first four years it was a private enterprise of the Department of Structural Mechanics, since 1952 was published with the support of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its present title is: Archives of Mechanics . The Journal is on the Philadelphia List .
M. T. Huber W. Nowacki W. Olszak W. Wierzbicki
The founders of the Journal were leading scientists in mechanics in Poland, in the postwar period. They contributed much in the development of the Polish Academy of Sciences, first of all in the organization and the development of the Institute of the Fundamental Technological Research.
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Until 1952 Archiwum Mechaniki Stosowanej was the only journal in mechanics in Poland. Nevertheless, from the beginning, the journal was publishing the papers also in congress languages. Already in the first issue one paper was in English, one in French and two in Polish with the English summaries.
The foundation of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1952 speeded up the generation of new scientific journals. The first was the Bulletin de l’Academie Polonaise des
Sciences.
In 1956 with the thaw in the relations between countries, the international scientific exchange became possible. This fact influenced the development of the scientific institutes, creation of the branch scientific societies and founding and developing the specialized scientific journals. The Institute of Fundamental
Technological Research (Polish name: Instytut Podstawowych Problemów Techniki ,
IPPT), was the first founded in 1953 institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The theoretical and applied mechanics belonged to the branches of knowledge in the first raw of the development after 1950. A number of conferences organized in this country and the scientific exchange increased rapidly after the change of the system in Poland.
Now, in August 2004 , the Local Organizing Committee is happy to be able to welcome you, our guests , on the 21 st International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics .
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