Stefan Banach

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Banach)

Stefan Banach (Bah-nahh - the 'ch' at the end is pronounced) (March 30, 1892 in Kraków, Austria-Hungary now Poland – August 31, 1945 in L'viv, Soviet Union now Ukraine), was an eminent Polish mathematician, one of the moving spirits of the Lwów School of Mathematics in pre-war Poland. He was largely self-taught in mathematics; his genius was accidentally discovered by Juliusz Mien and later Hugo Steinhaus.

When World War II began, Banach was President of the Polish Mathematical Society and a full professor of University of Lwów. Being a corresponding member of Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and otherwise on good terms with Soviet mathematicians, he was allowed to keep his chair, despite the Soviet occupation from 1939, of the city. Banach survived the subsequent brutal German occupation from July 1941 up to February 1944, earning a living by feeding lice with his blood in the Typhus Research Institute of Prof. Rudolf Weigl. His health declined during the occupation, and he developed lung cancer. After the war Lwów was incorporated into the Soviet Union, and Banach died there before he could be repatriated to Kraków, Poland. He is buried at the Lychakivskyj Cemetery.

1 Work
2 Quotes
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Work

Théorie des opérations linéaires (Teoria operacji liniowych, 1932) is regarded as Banach's most influential work. In it he formulated the concept now known as Banach space, and proved many fundamental theorems of functional analysis. He also initiated and edited the journal Studia Mathematica.

Besides being one of the founders of functional analysis, Banach also made important contributions to measure theory, set theory, and other branches of mathematics.