Bronisław Knaster (22 May 1893 – 3 November 1980) was a Polish

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

; from 1939 a university professor in

Lwów Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

and from 1945 in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

. In 1945, he completed a project in collaboration with

Karol Borsuk Karol Borsuk (8 May 1905 – 24 January 1982) was a Polish mathematician. His main area of interest was topology. He made significant contributions to Shape theory (mathematics), shape theory, a term which he coined. He also obtained important r ...

and

Kazimierz Kuratowski Kazimierz Kuratowski (; 2 February 1896 – 18 June 1980) was a Polish mathematician and logician. He was one of the leading representatives of the Warsaw School of Mathematics. He worked as a professor at the University of Warsaw and at the Ma ...

concerning the establishment of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is known for his work in

point-set topology In mathematics, general topology (or point set topology) is the branch of topology that deals with the basic set-theoretic definitions and constructions used in topology. It is the foundation of most other branches of topology, including differ ...

and in particular for his discoveries in 1922 of the hereditarily indecomposable continuum or

pseudo-arc In general topology, the pseudo-arc is the simplest nondegenerate hereditarily indecomposable continuum. The pseudo-arc is an arc-like homogeneous continuum, and played a central role in the classification of homogeneous planar continua. R. H. ...

and of the Knaster continuum, or buckethandle continuum. Together with his teacher

Hugo Steinhaus Hugo Dyonizy Steinhaus ( , ; 14 January 1887 – 25 February 1972) was a Polish mathematician and educator. Steinhaus obtained his PhD under David Hilbert at Göttingen University in 1911 and later became a professor at the Jan Kazimierz Univers ...

and his colleague

Stefan Banach Stefan Banach ( ; 30 March 1892 – 31 August 1945) was a Polish mathematician who is generally considered one of the 20th century's most important and influential mathematicians. He was the founder of modern functional analysis, and an original ...

, he also developed the last diminisher procedure for fair cake cutting. Knaster received his Ph.D. degree from

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 ...

in 1922 under the supervision of

Stefan Mazurkiewicz Stefan Mazurkiewicz (25 September 1888 – 19 June 1945) was a Polish mathematician who worked in mathematical analysis, topology, and probability. He was a student of Wacław Sierpiński and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (''PAU''). ...

References

1893 births 1990 deaths People from Warsaw Governorate University of Paris alumni Warsaw School of Mathematics Topologists Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland) Recipients of the Medal of the 10th Anniversary of the People's Republic of Poland {{Poland-mathematician-stub

See also

References