pol-ski:Stefan Banach — The Prince of Polish mathematicians — one of Poland’s bigg
pol-ski:Stefan Banach — The Prince of Polish mathematicians — one of Poland’s biggest scientific talents and the second most frequently invoked name in common mathematics after Euclid. Stefan Banach was not only a great mathematician, but also a colorful character. He liked to party all night and his life was a source of many anecdotes. In 1932 he published his life’s work – Theory of Linear Operations. “Banach’s space”, “Banach’s integral”, “Banach limit” and “Banach’s algebra”, all eminently complex mathematical equations and functions were coined over a glass of cognac, a pint of beer, loud music and in the midst of a cloud of tobacco smoke. John von Neumann, an American mathematician of Hungarian descent, visited Poland three times between the wars. Each time, on personal instructions from Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, he tried to talk Stefan Banach into emigrating to the United States. He offered Banach a check with only one number on it: it was one. Banach could add as many zeros as he wanted. What did the Polish mathematician do? He said that there was no such number of zeros that would compensate him for leaving Poland. I knew of the guy, but I didn’t know he was friggin’ handsome. -- source link
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