Andrzej Mariusz Trautman (born January 4, 1933 in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

) is a Polish

mathematical physicist Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developmen ...

who has made contributions to classical gravitation in general and to

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

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

Biography

Trautman was born in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

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 , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, 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 ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

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 ( pl, Politechnika Warszawska, lit=Varsovian Polytechnic) 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 professor ...

. 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's group at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields o ...

. This Institute was to become his permanent place of study and work. He obtained in 1959 the

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree at the Institute of Physics of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, 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 o ...

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

Einstein field equation In the 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 within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the form ...

, the Robinson-Trautman gravitational waves. In 1981, Trautman became a founding member of the

World Cultural Council The World Cultural Council is an international organization whose goals are to promote cultural values, goodwill and philanthropy among individuals. The organization founded in 1981 and based in Mexico, has held a yearly award ceremony since 198 ...

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)