An academic finds an asteroid and a new way to more easily solve complex equations using matrix algebra. Sounds impressive, but made even more so by the changes going on all around getting in the way. Only one/10th of the travails would have “the Big Bang Theory”‘s Sheldon riding the trains like a hobo with a credit card for the rest of the run of the show.
This stamp is somewhat of a reversal for the Communist regime in power at the time of this stamp. The year Banachiewicz died in 1954, the government removed the prewar faculty of Jagiellonian University for incorrect teaching. Then they honor one of that very faculty with a stamp. So were they hasty in 1954 or in 1983. The regime would probably say both times.
Todays stamp is issue A806, a 25 Zloty stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of Poland on March 25th, 1983. The stamp featured Tadeusz Banachiewicz, the Polish astronomer and mathematician. It was part of a 6 stamp issue in various denominations featuring famous people, to Poles. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Tadeusz Banachiewicz was a Pole and first studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Warsaw. This sounds natural but at the time the area was under Czarist Russians. The Russians were using the institution as a vehicle to Russify the Polish population of the area. There came a lot of pressure on Poles to boycott the University and T. B. was not the only student to go west and seek educational opportunities in Germany. The contacts he made at the University of Warsaw continued to serve him and he was able to find positions at a string of Russian observatories in Saint Petersburg and Kazan. The 1917 revolutions in Russia ended that and T. B. moved to the Polish city of Krakow to witness the rebirth of the Polish state on land seceded from Russia, Germany and in Krakow’s case Austria.
He hoped to secure a position at Jagiellonian University, an ancient university whose students included Copernicus and Pope John Paul II. The University was nearly closed after the Austrians took over the city in the 1850s, even going so far as to empty out the Great Hall to use for grain storage. Emperor Franz Josef took an interest in the university, saving it and even expanding the schools facilities. That did not stop the Polish students from tearing down and destroying Franz Josef’s portrait when the school passed into Polish hands in 1919.
T. B. was able to get a position and get busy doing his most important work. In 1925, he developed a theory called cracovians, named after the city. It was a type of matrix algebra that could be used to simplify the calculations of many types of complex equations. Astronomy had not fallen away. He discovered an asteroid 1287 Lorcia named in honor of his wife Laura.
Jagiellonian University was closed in 1939 upon the Nazi conquest. The post war Communist government in Poland reopened the University in 1945 but with just a skeleton staff. They were suspicious politically of the prewar staff who they dismissed completely in 1954. They toyed with the idea of a new University in Krakow but progress was very slow and eventually it was decided to shift investment into what they had with Jagiellonian. It is today the largest and most highly ranked University in Poland.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another and ponder the trajectory of 1287 Lorcia. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.