Marian Smoluchowski

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**Marian Smoluchowski**
Marian Ritter von Smolan Smoluchowski
Born	May 28, 1872 Vorderbrühl, Austria
Died	5 September 1917 Kraków, Poland
Residence	Poland
Nationality	Polish
Field	Physicist
Institution	University of Lviv Jagellonian University
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Academic advisor	Franz S. Exner and Joseph Stefan
Notable students	Jozef Patkowski Stanislaw Loria Waclaw Dziewulski
Known for	Pioneering statistical physics
Notable prizes	Haitinger prize of the Vienna Academy of Sciences (1908)

Marian Smoluchowski (Marian Ritter von Smolan Smoluchowski, 28 May 1872 in Vorderbrühl near Vienna - 5 September 1917 in Kraków) was a Polish scientist, pioneer of statistical physics and a mountaineer.

Smoluchowski studied physics in Vienna. His teachers were Franz S. Exner and Joseph Stefan. Ludwig Boltzmann held a position at Munich University during the studies of Smoluchowski in Vienna and returned in 1894, when Smoluchowki served in the Austrian army. It seems that they had no direct contact, although Smoluchowski's work follows in the tradition of Boltzmann's ideas. After several years spent at other universities (Paris, Glasgow, and Berlin), he moved to Lviv in 1899, where he took a position at the University of Lviv, before he moved to Kraków.

He described Brownian motion and worked on the kinetic theory at the same time as Albert Einstein. Smoluchowski presented an equation which became the basis of the theory of stochastic processes. In 1908 Smoluchowski became the first physicist to ascribe the phenomenon of critical opalescence to large density fluctuations.

Smoluchowski moved to Krakow in 1913, to take over the chair in Experimental Physics Department after August Witkowski, who had for a long time envisioned Smoluchowski as his successor. After the war had broken out, the conditions for work became unusually difficult, and even the spacious and modern Physics Department edifice, built by Witkowski a short time before, had been turned into a hospital by military authorities. Note that the possibility of working in that building had been of considerable importance to Smoluchowski when making the decision of moving to Krakow. Deprived of the premises, Smoluchowski was forced to work in the former apartment of the late Professor Karol Olszewski. During the experimental physics lectures carried out by Smoluchowski, making use of even the simplest demonstration equipment was virtually impossible.

Smoluchowski came to Krakow as a well known physicist of worldwide recognition. His scientific output included fundamental work on the kinetic theory of matter, density fluctuations in the gas phase and gas opalescence near the critical point. His investigations also concerned the blue colour of the sky as a consequence of light dispersion on fluctuations in the atmosphere, as well as explanation of Brownian motion of particles. At that time Smoluchowski proposed formulae which presently carry his name.

During the four-year-long period of his stay in Krakow, despite of the extreme difficulties, he carried out the work, which, according to a famous astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, constituted the basis of the modern theory of stochastic processes. Smoluchowski performed a great deal of academic teaching: he lectured in experimental physics, had numerous students including, Jozef Patkowski, Stanislaw Loria and Waclaw Dziewulski. His wide non-professional interests included skiing, mountain climbing in the Alps and Tatra Mountains, watercolour painting, playing the piano.

Smoluchowski died in 1917 the victim of a dysentery epidemic. In his obituary, Professor Wladyslaw Natanson wrote: "With great pleasure I would revive the charm of his life, knightly softness of his heart, combined with exquisite kindness. I wish I could reconstruct the odd appeal of his personality, recall how restrained he was, modest, and beautifully timid, yet always full of pure, almost unintentional joy."

societies = Copernicus Society of Natural Scientists, Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters
spouse = Zofia Baraniecka (m. 1901)
children = Aldona (1902-1984), Roman (b. 1910)

[edit] See also

[edit] Literature

A. Teske, Marian Smoluchowski, Leben und Werk. Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 1977.
A. Einstein and M. Smoluchowski: "Brownsche Bewegung. Untersuchungen über die Theorie der Brownschen Bewegung. Abhandlung über die Brownsche Bewegung und verwandte Erscheinungen", Harri Deutsch, 1997.
E. Seneta (2001) Marian Smoluchowski, Statisticians of the Centuries (ed. C. C. Heyde and E. Seneta) pp. 299-302. New York: Springer.
S. Ulam (1957) Marian Smoluchowski and the Theory of Probabilities in Physics, American Journal of Physics, 25, 475-481.
Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord, chapter 5, section 5e. Einstein and Smoluchowski; Critical Opalescence, (pp. 100-103), Oxford University Press, (1982) 2005, ISBN 0-19-280672-6.