Andrzej Mariusz Trautman (; born January 4, 1933) is a Polish mathematical physicist who has made contributions to classical

gravitation In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

in general and to

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

in particular. He made contributions to gravitation as early as 1958. The "Trautman-Bondi mass" is named after him.

Biography

Trautman was born in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

into an artistic family. His father, Mieczysław, was a painter and taught drawing at a secondary school in

. His mother, Eliza Trautman (née André), was French, though she was born in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, where her father, Marius André, was working as a French consular officer. His schooling, at the elementary level, was interrupted by the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

of 1944. After spending about ten months in Germany, he returned, with his mother (his father had died in 1941) to Poland. In the fall of 1945, they both went to Paris, to stay with their family there. In France, Trautman attended a Polish secondary school from which he graduated in 1949 and returned to Poland shortly afterwards. During the years 1949–55, he studied radio engineering at the

Warsaw University of Technology The Warsaw University of Technology () is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professors (including 145 titular professors). The student body ...

. After earning a master's degree under the influence of Warsaw Tech's theoretical physics professor Jerzy Plebański, he continued graduate work in

Leopold Infeld Leopold Infeld (20 August 1898 – 15 January 1968) was a Polish physicist who worked mainly in Second Polish Republic, Poland and Canada (1938–1950). He was a Rockefeller family, Rockefeller fellow at University of Cambridge, Cambridge Univers ...

's group at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

. This Institute was to become his permanent place of study and work. He obtained in 1959 the Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Physics of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

in Warsaw. In 1961, Trautman and his colleague Róża Michalska spent a few months at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

, at the invitation of Peter G. Bergmann. The year after, Róża and Andrzej married in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

. Trautman and Ivor Robinson discovered a family of exact solutions of the

Einstein field equations In the General relativity, general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of Matter#In general relativity and cosmology, matter within it. ...

, the Robinson–Trautman

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravitating masses. They were proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by H ...

. In 1977, Trautman identified the Dirac monopole with the Hopf fibration. In 1981, Trautman became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trautman, Andrzej 1933 births Living people Polish relativity theorists Warsaw University of Technology alumni Academic staff of the University of Warsaw Founding members of the World Cultural Council Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland)