Alena Šolcová
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Alena Šolcová (born 26 March 1950) is a Czech mathematician and science historian. She is the founder of the Kepler Museum, an astronomy museum in
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
.


Life and work

Between 1968 and 1973, Šolcová studied mathematics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and Philosophy at
Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...
. Between 2002 and 2005, she completed her doctoral studies in mathematics in Civil Engineering with the doctoral thesis titled '' Fermat's Ideas Revived in Mathematics Applied in Engineering,'' and in 2009 she completed her
habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
at the
Czech Technical University in Prague Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) () is one of the largest universities in the Czech Republic with 8 faculties, and is one of the oldest institutes of technology in Central Europe. It is also the oldest non-military technical universi ...
, and was appointed associate professor in the field of
applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...
. Šolcová works at the Faculty of Information Technologies of the Czech Technical University in Prague, where she teaches mathematical logic and the
history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the History of mathematical notation, mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples ...
and computer science. She also deals with logic,
number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...
, some numerical methods and the history of mathematics, computer science and astronomy. Since 1992, she has led the ''SEDMA'' seminar (Seminar for the History of Mathematics, Informatics and Astronomy) and the working group for the history of exact sciences ''HEXA''. She was the initiator and founder of an astronomy museum, the Kepler Museum in Prague (after its establishment, the museum was managed by the Czech Astronomical Society, in operation from 2009 to 2017). She initiated the establishment of commemorative plaques to
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
on Prague's Old Town Square and another to Austrian mathematician
Johann Radon Johann Karl August Radon (; 16 December 1887 – 25 May 1956) was an Austrian mathematician. His doctoral dissertation was on the calculus of variations (in 1910, at the University of Vienna). Life RadonBrigitte Bukovics: ''Biography of Johan ...
in
Děčín Děčín (; ) is a city in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 46,000 inhabitants. It is the seventth largest municipality in the country by area. Děčín is an important traffic junction. Administrative division Děč ...
, Czech Republic. Šolcová is an honorary member of ''the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists'' and has served as its chairman beginning in 2018. She is also a member of the editorial board of the ''Czechoslovak Journal for Physics''. She remains an active member of the Czech Mathematical Society and the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics, which provides expertise concerning issues in logic, probability and reasoning.


Honors

* ''The magic of numbers - From great discoveries to applications'', Academia Praha, 2009, 2011, 2018 with co-authors Michal Křížek and Lawrence Somer, was awarded the Hlávká prize for scientific literature in 2010 (First prize). * In 1998, the
International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...
named planet No. 58682 Alenašolcová in her honor.


Selected publications

* Šolcová, Alena, and Michał Křižek. "Fermat And Mersenne Numbers In Pepin's Test1." ''Demonstratio Mathematica'' 39, no. 4 (2006): 737–742. * Křížek, Michal, Alena Šolcová, and Lawrence Somer. "Construction of Šindel sequences." ''Commentationes Mathematicae Universitatis Carolinae'' 48, no. 3 (2007): 373–388. * Solcova, Alena, and Michal Krizek. "Vladimír Vand (1911–1968): Pioneer of Computational Methods in Crystallography." ''IEEE Annals of the History of Computing'' 33, no. 4 (2011): 38–44. * Křížek, Michal, Lawrence Somer, and Alena Šolcová. ''From great discoveries in number theory to applications''. Cham: Springer, 2021.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Solcova, Alena 1950 births Living people Czech mathematicians 20th-century Czech mathematicians 20th-century women mathematicians Charles University alumni Czech Technical University in Prague alumni Czech Technical University in Prague