Tadeusz Julian Banachiewicz (13 February 1882,

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 ...

– 17 November 1954,

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) was a Polish

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and geodesist.

Scientific career

Banachiewicz was educated at University of Warsaw and his thesis was on "reduction constants of the Repsold heliometer". In 1905, after the closure of the University by the Russians, he moved to

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and in 1906 to the Pulkovo Observatory. He also worked at the Engelhardt Observatory at Kazan University from 1910 to 1915.The Observatory in the years of T. Banachiewicz's management (1919-1954)
Krakow Astronomical Observatory, Retrieved 10 February 2010 In 1919, after Poland regained its independence, Banachiewicz moved to

, becoming a professor at the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

and the director of Kraków Observatory (). A major contribution was a modified method of determining parabolic orbits. In 1925, he invented a theory of " cracovians" – a special kind of matrix algebra – which brought him international recognition. This theory solved several astronomical, geodetic, mechanical and mathematical problems. In 1922 he became a member of Polish Academy of Learning and from 1932 to 1938 was the vice-president of the

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. He was also the first President of the

Polish Astronomical Society The Polish Astronomical Society (Polish: ''Polskie Towarzystwo Astronomiczne, PTA'') is science society in Poland, founded in 1923, with headquarters in Warsaw. Members of PTA are professional astronomers. Purpose of the association is promoting ...

, the vice-president of the Geodetic Committee of The Baltic States and, from 1952 to his death, a member 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 ...

. He was also the founder of the journal

Acta Astronomica ''Acta Astronomica'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering astronomy and astrophysics. It was established in 1925 by the Polish astronomer Tadeusz Banachiewicz. Initially, the journal published articles in Latin, later Englis ...

. He was the recipient of Doctor Honoris Causa titles from the University of Warsaw (1929), the University of Poznań (1936) and the

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(1948). Banachiewicz invented a chronocinematograph, an astronomical instrument for precise observations of

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s. He published more than 500 scientific papers, scientific and popular press communications, telegraph scientific reports, polemics, reviews, reports and editorial works, dealing with astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, geodesy, geophysics and other fields of science. The LU decomposition was introduced by Banachiewicz in 1938.

Honors

The lunar crater Banachiewicz and the main-belt asteroid 1286 Banachiewicza are named after him. The asteroid 1287 Lorcia was named after his wife following his suggestion to the discoverer.

References

External links

* Adam Strzałkowski
Tadeusz Banachiewicz – Mistrz i Nauczyciel
Zwoje 4/41, 2004 {{DEFAULTSORT:Banachiewicz, Tadeusz 1882 births 1954 deaths Academic staff of Jagiellonian University Members of the Polish Academy of Learning Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences 20th-century Polish astronomers Polish geodesists 20th-century Polish mathematicians Scientists from Warsaw