figure a

I have known Maciej Sablik for almost half a century; I first met him at the Institute of Mathematics of the Silesian University of Katowice when he attended the so called Kuczma’s Tuesday Seminar as a student. He was born in Chorzów (some years ago) but ever since he has lived in Katowice. He completed his education here: the primary school (no. 37), followed by the high school named after Nicholas Copernicus, whence after graduation he began studying mathematics at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry of the Silesian University of Katowice. It is remarkable that all these institutions at that time were situated in the building what is now the Silesian Priests Seminar. Not very far there is also a cemetery, so it seemed that he would live his life in a space of a square mile.

However, the mathematics institute was transferred to the Bankowa campus soon, and here it has remained till now. Maciej started his adventure with mathematics right there. He met his Master, Professor Marek Kuczma, who introduced him in to the world of functional equations and inequalities. In 1975 Maciej Sablik was given a job in a technical position. It is noteworthy that for three months he worked as a “mathematician”, probably the only three months in his life. Nevertheless, after the summer holidays in 1976 he got a position as an assistant trainee in the Department of Functional Equations. He started to work on his doctoral dissertation, under the guidance of Marek Kuczma. Professor Kuczma was not prone to indulgence, and the dissertation was ripe for defence relatively soon. Actually, the defence took place in July 1980.

Then Professor Kuczma had a stroke, and in Poland there was an explosion of “Solidarity” movement. For several years the scientific carreer of Maciej Sablik, unhurriedly, moved on. In 1997 he got the habilitation, and in 2011 the President of the Republic of Poland appointed him professor of mathematics.

After the habilitation, all the authorities took notice of him. First he was offered the position of deputy director of the Institute of Mathematics for didactic matters. Three years later he was elected dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry (there was a line for a mathematician). He remained at this position till 2012, when he took the position of director of the Institute of Mathematics of the University of Silesia.

Since the seventies Maciej Sablik has been taking part in international scientific conferences, in particular in the most prestigious for every “functional equationist” the International Symposia on Functional Equations (ISFE). During conferences and scientific visits (in Waterloo, Louisville, Sarajevo, Barcelona, Debrecen, Graz and Innsbruck) he made many friends and established scientific cooperation. He has many friends also at the University of Silesia. Among the achievements of Professor Sablik one can mention the solution to the equation of Abel, which was mentioned in the celebrated Hilbert’s Fifth Problem. One can also mention his contribution to the characterization of polynomials of lower degrees. However, paraphrasing Steinhaus who considered Banach as his greatest mathematical discovery, perhaps Sablik’s greatest achievement was the started the tradition of the Pi Day at the University of Silesia—the feast survived the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, and will be continued. Let us also mention, out of reporting duty, that Professor Sablik is the Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the ISFE series, member of the Committee for Mathematical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Science, and until recently he was president of the Polish Mathematical Society, Upper Silesian Branch, leader of the group of Functional Equations, Editor in Chief of Annales Mathematicae Silesianae. It is worth of mentioning that Maciej Sablik is active also as a collaborator for the Polish Radio Broadcast in Katowice, and for many years he used to collaborate with the weekly “Gość Niedzielny” (it was widely known that several people were took to reading the subsequent issues with Maciej’s column). It is also feels right to mention that Maciej Sablik is a man of great energy and a polyglote with deep knowledge of English, French and Russian; he is no stranger to German and even Spanish either (if necessary). Therefore let me conclude this text by underlying that the large international family of his friends, students and colaborators wish him to remember that:

early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,

poisson sans boisson est poison,

jazyk do Kijewa dowiedot where czuża dusza – temnyj les,

Gedanken zind zollfrei and das Ewigweibliche zieht uns hinan (J.W. Goethe),

a quien madruga Dios le ayuda,

disce puer latine, te ego fatiam mości panie, to say after Ovid : ipsa sua melior fama,

and last but not least:

wszyscy z nas uśmiechają się do Ciebie (all of us are similing at You).

\(\textit{ Roman Ger}\)