Stefan Banach (1892 - 1945)

Born 30 Mar 1892 in Kraków, Poland

Husband of Łucja Braus — married 19 Sep 1920 in Kraków, Poland

Died 31 Aug 1945 at age 53 in Lviv, Lviv, Ukraine, Soviet Union

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Biography

Stefan Banach is Notable.

Stephan was born in 1892. He passed away in 1945.

Stephan 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 member of the Lwów School of Mathematics. His major work was the 1932 book, Théorie des opérations linéaires (Theory of Linear Operations), the first monograph on the general theory of functional analysis.

Many of Banach's papers were co-authored, often with his students, especially S. Mazur. This was the result of Banach's style of work which involved frequent or prolonged visits to restaurants or coffee-houses where many results originated in discussions with his collaborators. One such establishment, the Scottish Café, eventually became the regular haunt of Banach, Mazur and Ulam. Often they wrote solutions on the marble tables of the Café, which unfortunately were cleaned by the staff each morning. It is to the credit of Mrs. Lucia Banach whom Banach had married in the early 1920's that she entrusted the head waiter with a thick notebook with a stiff cover in which problems could be written down and the rewards for solving them recorded. These rewards varied from a small cup of black coffee to a live goose. Thus was born the famous Scottish Book which contained 193 items prior to June 1941. Miraculously saved from the ravages of war by Banach's widow, the Scottish Book came into the possession of Banach's son, Dr. Stefan Banach, a neurosurgeon who presented it to the Stefan Banach Mathematical Centre when it was established in Warsaw in 1972.

Stefan Banach's father was Stefan Greczek. The first thing to notice is that Banach was not his father's surname, but Banach was given his father's first name. Stefan Greczek was a tax official who was not married to Banach's mother who vanished from the scene after Stefan was baptised, when he was only four days old, and nothing more is known of her.

Stefan Greczek was born in a small village called Ostrowsko, some 50 km south of Kraków. It was to Ostrowsko, to his grandmother's home, that Banach was taken after his baptism. However, when Banach's grandmother took ill, Stefan Greczek arranged for his son to be brought up by Franciszka Plowa who lived in Kraków with her daughter Maria. Young Stefan came to regard Franciszka as his foster mother and Maria as his older sister.

In January 1945, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was permitted to stay in Lwów. He died on 31 August 1945, aged 53. His funeral at the Lychakiv Cemetery (Cmentarz Łyczakowski) was attended by hundreds of people.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Stefan Banach
• Wikidata: Item Q180217, en:Wikipedia
• https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Banach/
• http://kielich.amu.edu.pl/Stefan_Banach/e-index.html
• Stefan Banach (1892-1945): A Commemoration of His Life and Work. The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 79, No. 486 (Nov., 1995), pp. 456-470.
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13533647/stefan-banach