Jaroslav Kurzweil (, 7 May 1926,
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
– 17 March 2022) was a Czech
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
.
Biography
Born in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
,
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, he was a specialist in
ordinary differential equation
In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation (ODE) is a differential equation whose unknown(s) consists of one (or more) function(s) of one variable and involves the derivatives of those functions. The term ''ordinary'' is used in contrast w ...
s and defined the
Henstock–Kurzweil integral
In mathematics, the Henstock–Kurzweil integral or generalized Riemann integral or gauge integral – also known as the (narrow) Denjoy integral (pronounced ), Luzin integral or Perron integral, but not to be confused with the more general wide ...
in terms of
Riemann sums
In mathematics, a Riemann sum is a certain kind of approximation of an integral by a finite sum. It is named after nineteenth century German mathematician Bernhard Riemann. One very common application is approximating the area of functions or ...
, first published in 1957 in the Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal. Kurzweil has been awarded the highest possible scientific prize of Czechia, the "Czech Brain" of the year 2006, as an acknowledgement of his life achievements.
With limited opportunities of contact between mathematicians within the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
and those from the West, Kurzweil and
Ivo Babuška
Ivo M. Babuška (born March 22, 1926, in Prague) is a Czech-American mathematician, noted for his studies of the finite element method and the proof of the Babuška–Lax–Milgram theorem in partial differential equations. One of the celebrated re ...
founded a series of international scientific conferences named EQUADIFF, being held every four years since 1962 alternately in Prague,
Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...
, and
Brno
Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
. He was chief editor of Mathematica Bohemica (then called ''Časopis pro pěstování matematiky'') from 1956 to 1970 and was in its editorial board until 2007. In 2007, Kurzweil delivered a New Year's toast on Czech Television.
Ninety years of Jaroslav Kurzweil
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See also
* Henstock–Kurzweil integral
In mathematics, the Henstock–Kurzweil integral or generalized Riemann integral or gauge integral – also known as the (narrow) Denjoy integral (pronounced ), Luzin integral or Perron integral, but not to be confused with the more general wide ...
References
* Kurzweil, Jaroslav (2012). Generalized Ordinary Differential Equations: Not Absolutely Continuous Solutions. Series in Real Analysis. 11. World Scientific Publishing Company. .
* Jiří Jarník; Štefan Schwabik; Milan Tvrdý; Ivo Vrkoč
Sixty years of Jaroslav Kurzweil.
Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal, Vol. 36 (1986), No. 1, 147–166
* Kurzweil J.. Generalized ordinary differential equations and continuous dependence on a parameter. Czechoslovak Mathe. Journal, 7 (82) 1957, 418–449.
External links
Jaroslav Kurzweil
Mathematics Genealogy Project
The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) is a web-based database for the academic genealogy of mathematicians.. By 31 December 2021, it contained information on 274,575 mathematical scientists who contributed to research-level mathematics. For a ty ...
Biography
in Czech
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurzweil, Jaroslav
1926 births
2022 deaths
Charles University alumni
Czechoslovak mathematicians
20th-century Czech mathematicians
21st-century Czech mathematicians
Mathematicians from Prague
Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic)