Abstract
The vacation was long, and I occupied it mainly by preparing myself, a Jasło novice, for initiation into the ranks of what were then called in Galicia “academics”—a gross exaggeration, naturally. I spent a few weeks alone in Rabka acquiring appropriate clothes and learning the elements of descriptive geometry, which I wanted to master at least to the level taught in the technical colleges, where it was a required subject. My cousin Dyk, my senior by a year, was already studying law in Lwów.
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Notes
- 1.
A town between Kraków and Zakopane on the northern slopes of the Gorce Mountains.
- 2.
The capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Austrian part of Poland, from 1772 to 1918 (the period of the partitions of Poland). Lwów, or L′viv in Ukrainian, is now in western Ukraine.
- 3.
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski (1866–1938), Polish philosopher. Founder of the Lwów-Warsaw school of philosophy.
- 4.
A private semimilitary high school for Vienna’s bourgeois ´elite, founded by Maria Theresa in 1746.
- 5.
Franz Brentano (1838–1917), influential German philosopher and psychologist.
- 6.
O Man! Take heed! Set to music by many others, including Gustav Mahler.
- 7.
Friedrich Albert Lange (1828–1875), German philosopher, pedagogue, political activist, and journalist.
- 8.
A standard introduction to materialism and the history of philosophy still in use well into the twentieth century.
- 9.
Austrian physicist and philosopher. In particular, he explained the puzzle of the behavior of rotating objects in terms of the background of stars in the galaxy. Exerted a major influence on the logical positivists. Lived from 1838 to 1916.
- 10.
“Analysis of Sensations”
- 11.
“Popular-scientific Lectures”
- 12.
Jules Henri Poincar´e (1854–1912), preeminent French mathematician and theoretical physicist. Often called “the last universalist” in mathematics.
- 13.
Julian Ochorowicz (1850–1917), Polish inventor, philosopher, and theorist of positivism.
- 14.
Prince Józef Puzyna of Kozielsk (1856–1919), Polish mathematician. After completing his doctorate in Lwów, he went to Germany and attended lectures of Kronecker and Fuchs. Appointed professor in the University of Lwów in 1892.
- 15.
Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs (1833–1902), German mathematician. Fuchsian groups are named after him.
- 16.
Władysław Trzaska Kretkowski (1840–1910), Polish mathematician. Studied mathematics in Paris and Kraków. Habilitated in Lwów.
- 17.
Jan Rajewski (1857–1906), Polish mathematician and physicist. Professor at Lwów University from 1900.
- 18.
Stanisław Kępiński (1867–1908), Polish mathematician. From 1898 professor at Lwów University and Polytechnic.
- 19.
Marian Smoluchowski (1872–1917), Polish physicist. Pioneer of statistical mechanics, in a similar vein to Ludwig Boltzmann. Awarded a prize in experimental physics by the Vienna Academy of Sciences in 1908. Noted mountaineer.
- 20.
Stanisław Grabski (1871–1949), Polish economist and National Democratic politician. Ardent Polish nationalist. Retired from political life in 1926. Professor of Economics at Lwów University 1910–1939.
- 21.
“Nobody dances sober unless he is quite mad”.
- 22.
Polish writer and poet of the period of Young Poland.
- 23.
The ban was demanded by the church authorities. However, when certain members of parliament objected, Niemojewski’s Legendy were allowed to appear in 1902 as Tytuł skonfiskowany (“A banned title”).
- 24.
bardzo means “very”.
- 25.
Hectography is a printing process involving transfer of an original, prepared with special inks, to a gelatin pad pulled tight on a metal frame. The finished product is called a hectograph, or sometimes a “jellygraph”.
- 26.
Game theory analyses conflictual scenarios where each party may choose any strategy from a prescribed set. In 1925 Steinhaus wrote a note setting out the fundamental notions of this theory. The note, entitled “Definicje potrzebne do teorji gry i pościgu”, was published in the obscure review journal Myśl Akademicka in Lwów. An English translation entitled “Definitions for a theory of games and pursuit” appeared in the journal Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 7 (1960), pp. 105–108. See also H. Steinhaus, Selected Papers, PWN, Warsaw 1985, pp. 332–336. (The French mathematician ´ Emile Borel also published papers on game theory in 1921. However, the credit for developing and popularizing the theory is now usually given to John von Neumann, whose first paper on that topic appeared in 1928.)
- 27.
The main street of Lwów, renamed many times since.
- 28.
Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849), Polish Romantic poet. One of the “Three Bards” of Polish literature. A major figure of the Polish Romantic period, his work often contains elements of Slavic pagan traditions, mysticism, and orientalism. Regarded as the father of modern Polish drama.
- 29.
Polish historian and literary theorist. Lived from 1886 to 1957.
- 30.
Podole (Podolia) is a historic region of Eastern Europe which belonged to Poland between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries and again during the twentieth century interwar period. It is now in western Ukraine. Drohobycz was the name of a city near Lwów, now called Drogobych and belonging to western Ukraine.
- 31.
The Ruthenians were originally Ukrainian-speaking people dwelling in the deep, narrow valleys of the Carpathian Mountains. In the eleventh century, Ruthenia (or “Subcarpathian Ruthenia”) was taken over by Hungary. A vigorous movement in the second half of the nineteenth century to save themselves from Hungarianization ultimately failed.
- 32.
At that time there were several conflicts going on between the very diverse nationalities that made up the Austro-Hungarian empire.
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Steinhaus, H. (2015). In the Capital Lwów. In: Burns, R., Szymaniec, I., Weron, A. (eds) Mathematician for All Seasons. Vita Mathematica, vol 18. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21984-4_3
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