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Kazimierz Abramowicz

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Born
4 March 1888
Brzeziny, Łódź Voivodeship, Russian Empire (now Poland)
Died
10 September 1936
Poznań, Poland
Summary
Kazimierz Abramowicz was a Polish mathematician who lived through difficult times in the early 1900s in Europe. He studied in Kyiv and worked most of his career at the University of Poznań.
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Biography

Kazimierz Abramowicz was the son of Tomasz Franciszek Abramowicz (1863-?), a teacher at the school in Lutosławice Rządowe, and Maria Petronela Gniotek (1867-1944). Lutosławice Rządowe is south of the city of Łódź and north of Piotrków Trybunalski. The region was originally in Poland but in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 it was annexed to Prussia. After Napoleon's conquest it became part of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw but the 1815 Congress of Vienna saw the region incorporated into the Russian Empire. There were continuing tensions between Poles and the Russian authorities and there was a Polish uprising in 1863. Tomasz and Maria Petronela had three children, Kazimierz Abramowicz (1888-1936), the subject of this biography, Izabela Abramowicz (1889-1973), who became a mathematician and has a biography in this archive, and Zygmunt Abramowicz (1893-1966). Although Kazimierz was born on Brzeziny, the town of his mother's birth east of the city of Łódź, both his siblings were born in Lutosławice Rządowe where the family lived.

In 1898, at the age of ten, Abramowicz began his secondary education at the State Gymnasium in Piotrków Trybunalski. The economy of the area deteriorated in early 1900s with many Polish workers losing their jobs. There were protests by Poles who wanted an independent Poland and opposed the government's policy of Russification. Strikes and protests began in the Łódź region even before the Russian Revolution began on 22 January 1905. Strikes caused school closures, many lost their lives when Russian police fired on protesters, and there was fighting in Łódź, Piotrków Trybunalski and other major towns in the region. In order to complete his secondary school education, Abramowicz interrupted his studies in Piotrków Trybunalski and transferred to the State Gymnasium in Bobruisk. This city had been in Poland but had gone through the same changes as the Łódź region to end up in the Russian Empire in 1815. Today, however, it is in Belarus. Abramowicz took his matriculation examinations and graduated from the State Gymnasium in Bobruisk in 1907. Later in that year he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the St Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev (now the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine). The university had been founded in 1834 and had, from its foundation, a strong school of mathematics.

This was a particularly difficult time for anyone to be studying at the University of Kiev since it was a time of mass student protest associated with the Russian Revolution of 1905. There was unrest among students caused by events at universities across the country. Student strikes and student riots were monitored by the Kiev Secret Police. Abramowicz was not alone in Kiev, however, for his sister Izabela Abramowicz also began her studies at the University of Kiev in 1907. We are unsure exactly when Abramowicz's mother came to Kiev, but certainly at some stage the three were living together in Kiev.

At the University of Kiev, Abramowicz was taught mathematics by, among others, Boris Yakovlevic Bukreev and Dmitry Aleksandrovich Grave. Among his fellow students was Alexander Markowich Ostrowski who, although five years younger than Abramowicz, joined Grave's seminar at the University of Kiev in 1908 when he was a fifteen year old schoolboy. Bukreev ran a seminar on the theory of analytic functions and Abramowicz joined that seminar in his second year of study. He presented the paper Exponential, logarithmic, trigonometric and circular functions of a complex variable (Russian) to Bukreev's seminar. He attended Grave's Course of Algebraic Analysis (Russian) and the lecture notes he took were available to students from 1910 as a lithographic text. Abramowicz also helped Grave in publishing other courses of his lectures, for example Arithmetical Theory of Algebraic Quantities (Russian) (1909-10) and Elements of the theory of elliptic functions (Russian) (1910). Wiaczesław A Dobrowolski writes [2]:-
Having thoroughly familiarised himself with the classical works of Euler, Pfaff, Gauss, Kummer and Schwartz on hypergeometric series, Abramowicz became particularly interested in the lectures of Felix Klein. Following the example of this scholar, he devoted his entire attention to functions of a more general type, which Klein called "Funktionen mit Nebenpunkten", which means that the subject of considerations were hypergeometric functions with so-called removable singular points.
In 1910 Abramowicz submitted the paper On the hypergeometric series (Russian) for the University's competitive prize and it was awarded a gold medal. In 1911 he graduated with a first-degree diploma which was about equivalent in standard to a present day Master's Degree and required both examinations and a thesis. Abramowicz wrote the thesis On hypergeometric functions with one removable singular point (Russian) for which he was awarded a gold medal [2]:-
The first chapter presented the theory of the ordinary Riemann function P with some modernisation of the proofs. The second chapter was devoted to hypergeometric functions Q with one apparently singular point. The third chapter dealt with the function η(z)\eta(z), which is the ratio of two Q functions. In Abramowicz's work, the results of his predecessors were supplemented, and in a number of cases the problems were considered in a more general form. This work was distinguished by the clarity and precision of its exposition ...
Grave examined the thesis and wrote in his report:-
Abramowicz demonstrated erudition and attempts at original creativity.
His thesis was printed in a slightly abridged form in two parts in the Kiev Uniwiersitietskije Izwiestija in 1912. The problem of finding coefficients in Riemann's formulas which were related to hypergeometric functions was the subject of another paper by Abramowicz which he published in 1913.

In the summer of 1912 Abramowicz, as one of the best and most talented students, was awarded a scholarship for two years to fund his continuing research and work towards his Master's Degree at the University of Kiev. Advised by Grave, he undertook the major task of preparing to be examined for this degree. At this time the Master's Degree was in standard between that of the present Ph.D. and the habilitation. Obtaining this degree allowed the person to become a docent and to lecture on a designated topic. Abramowicz took the Master's Degree examinations between 18 February 1914 and 29 April 1914. He sat the following eight examinations:
(i) On the theory of differential equations (on 18 February),
(ii) On the theory of functions (on 18 February),
(iii) On Geometry (on 18 March),
(iv) On Probability Theory (on 18 March),
(v) On Algebra (on 18 March),
(vi) On Mechanics (on 15 April),
(vii) On Differential Calculus (on 29 April),
(viii) On Variational Calculus (on 29 April).
He was given the grades "very good" for the examinations (i)- (vi), and the grades "good" for (vii) and (viii). Based on these results, Grave recommended that Abramowicz should undertake research on automorphic functions. The two places that were most useful for a young researcher to visit at this time were Berlin and Göttingen and in May 1914 the Mathematics Department at Kiev, impressed with his potential, sent Abramowicz to Germany to study at these two centres. Europe was, however, rapidly moving towards a war and when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914, Russia came to Serbia's defence. By 4 August Germany was drawn into the war and Abramowicz was forced to return to Kiev.

He was appointed as an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Kiev in the spring of 1915. In 1916-1917 he taught at a special course in the theory of elliptic functions at the University of Kiev. He also served as a lecturer at Kiev Polytechnic from 1914 to 1916. In October 1916 Perm State University was founded, initially as a branch of St Petersburg University, in the city of Perm. Abramowicz was sent to Perm to lecture at the new university for the year 1916-17. After one year Perm University became independent of St Petersburg University and on 14 August 1917 the Ministry approved Abramowicz's appointment as an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Perm.

After teaching at the University of Perm during session 1917-18, Abramowicz returned to Kiev for the summer vacation. He had for some time shared a house in Kiev with his mother Maria Petronela Abramowicz and his sister Izabela Abramowicz. The Russian Civil War had begun in November 1917 and Perm, having military munitions factories, was a target for both sides. Abramowicz decided not to return to Perm for the session 1918-19 but remained in Kiev and taught at the Kiev Polytechnic. In fact the Siberian White Army took Perm in December 1918 but with continued fighting, it was retaken by the Red Army in July 1919.

In June 1919 Poland was confirmed as an independent country with the Treaty of Versailles. Although World War I had ended in 1918, Poland was immediately involved in a war with Soviet Russia and in May 1920 Polish-Ukrainian forces reached Kiev. Stanisław Domoradzki and Małgorzata Stawiska write [4]:-
... faculty and students started to leave [Kiev] as the fighting continued. Even after the Great War had ended, Kiev changed hands, passing from Germans to Ukrainians to Bolsheviks to White Russians to Ukrainians and Poles to Bolsheviks again.
Abramowicz left Kiev with the retreating Polish army and arrived in Warsaw in June 1920. In August 1920 the Red Army approached Warsaw but was defeated when Polish forces commanded by Józef Piłsudski counterattacked. The new independent Poland looked to build up its education system and the University of Poznań had been founded on 7 May 1919. Two chairs of mathematics were founded; Zdzisław Krygowski was appointed to the first chair and Franciszek Włodarski (1899-1944) to the second chair. Abramowicz was offered a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Poznań or an equivalent one at the University of Vilnius; he chose to accept Poznań.

On 18 February 1921, Abramowicz arrived in Poznań and, after living in a number of temporary places around the city, by October 1921 was in his own apartment in Stanisława Wyspiańskiego street. He was joined in this apartment by his mother Maria Petronela Abramowicz and his sister Izabela Abramowicz on 25 August 1923.

When Abramowicz moved to Poznań in February 1921, session 1920-21 was already well under way. The university year was made up of trimesters and he began teaching in the second of these. From 1 March to 30 April 1921 he taught number theory with a two hour class every Wednesday and an exercise class in the theory of algebraic equations for one hour every Friday. He continued to give both of these in the third trimester, 1 May to 17 July 1921, and, in addition, he also taught the theory of algebraic equations for one hour on every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

As Poland organised its education system after it became an independent country, it required those with degrees obtained from abroad to complete their studies in Poland. Abramowicz was in a position to easily obtain a doctorate since he had four excellent papers published between 1911 and 1917, but things were made more difficult for him when in 1921 the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Poznań brought in a requirement that anyone applying for a doctorate was required to have studied for one year at the University of Poznań and must submit a thesis containing material not previously published. The University of Warsaw did not have conditions of this type on their doctorates, so Abramowicz applied to study for a doctorate at the University of Warsaw in 1922. He was assigned Stefan Mazurkiewicz as his thesis advisor and quickly submitted the thesis On hypergeometric functions with an arbitrary number of removable singular points (Polish). He was awarded a doctorate on 23 May 1922.

Lech Maligranda lists the courses Abramowicz delivered from 1922 to 1936 in [9]:-
In the following years (1922-36) Abramowicz gave the following lectures, classes and seminars at the University of Poznań: Differential and integral calculus with exercises (1925-36); Algebraic equations (1923-24); Introduction to analysis (1923-25); Theory of numerical equations (1924-25); Elementary mathematics (1924-25); Determinants and linear equations (1926-27 and 1927-28); Integral calculus with quadratures of differential equations (1926-27); Proseminar on differential and integral calculus (1926-27, 1928-29); Differential geometry (1928-29); and Analysis with elements of higher algebra for physicists (1928-29).
In 1929 Abramowicz habilitated in mathematics at the University of Poznań. This was recorded in the Senate Minutes of 24 April 1929:-
Motion of the Council of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences to grant Dr. Kazimierz Abramowicz veniae legendi in the field of mathematics. In a secret vote, the motion was approved and it was resolved to send it to the Ministry for approval.
The Minister approved Abramowicz's habilitation on 11 May 1929.

In Maligranda's article [9] we learn a little about Abramowicz's personality:-
He probably had difficult war experiences behind him, he was always serious, never smiled, he looked either at the floor or at the ceiling. He examined female students with the door half open.
He examined many students but let us note three in particular who have become quite famous because of their work as cryptologists reconstructing the German military Enigma cypher machine before World War II; Marian Adam Rejewski, Jerzy Witold Rozycki and Henryk Michał Zygalski. Abramowicz awarded Rejewski a "good" grade for differential calculus while he awarded both Rozycki and Zygalski a "very good" grade for the same topic.

The First Polish Mathematics Congress was held in Lwów, 7-10 September 1927. The Congress was attended by about 200 mathematicians from Poland and a small number from abroad. About 100 lectures were delivered in the halls of the Lwów Polytechnic. Three mathematicians from the University of Poznań attended the Congress, Kazimierz Abramowicz, his sister Izabela Abramowicz, and the assistant Lidja Seipeltówna. Kazimierz Abramowicz gave the lecture On the transformation of automorphic functions of several variables (Polish). A short paper summarising his lecture was published in the Proceeding of the Congress. We give an English translation:
The problem, given by Poincaré in his treatise: "Sur les fonctions fuchsiennes et l'arithmétique" Ⓣ on the transformation of Fuchs functions, can be generalised to automorphic functions of several variables. In the case of an automorphic function f(x1,x2,...xn)f(x_1 , x_{2}, ... x_{n} ) with n variables x1,x2,...xnx_{1}, x_{2}, ... x_{n}, belonging to the discontinuous group G, the problem will consist in determining the conditions under which there is an algebraic dependence between the function f and the function transformed by means of a certain substitution S, not belonging to the group G. In general, not for every automorphic function f will there exist such a substitution S for which the aforementioned algebraic dependence will hold; this will only happen exceptionally for individual functions, and the first goal will be to determine those functions for which the transformation problem is possible.
...
We consider groups such as quadratic and linear or hyperfuchsian groups. As for quadratic groups, we show that Poincaré's theorem on the transformation of arithmetic Fuchsian functions extends to functions belonging to the quadratic group with rational integer coefficients. In the case of hyperfuchsian functions, we give a method that allows us to determine the cases in which there exists a hyperfuchsian function f, as well as a continuous group g, each substitution of which applied to the function f gives a new function, related to the previous algebraic relation.

The method is based on the study of the fixed points of the hyperfuchsian group G, for which we prove the theorem that these points remain unchanged under substitutions of the continuous group g; this theorem leads to the determination of the group G.
The First Polish Mathematics Congress resolved to convene the First Congress of Mathematicians of Slavic Countries in Warsaw in 1929. This Congress took place 23-27 September 1929 with Wacław Sierpiński as its chairman. In his opening address Sierpiński:-
... emphasised among other things that the Congress did not in any way have a political basis. Its goal was to establish closer intellectual relationships among researchers who work in the same branch of knowledge, who live in nearby territories and for whom collaboration is made somewhat easier by the kinship of their native languages. As a confirmation of his words Prof Sierpiński pointed to the presence of several mathematicians who came from non-Slavic countries with the goal of participating in the work of the Congress.
Kazimierz Abramowicz and his sister Izabela Abramowicz both attended this Congress and Kazimierz Abramowicz delivered the lecture Sur un groupe automorphe Ⓣ.

The Second Congress of Polish Mathematicians was held in Vilnius 23-26 September 1931. Despite the general economic crisis, the Congress was attended by over 160 mathematicians including Kazimierz Abramowicz and his sister Izabela Abramowicz. He delivered the lecture On the transformation of hyperfuchsian functions (Polish).

The Fourteenth Congress of Polish Physicians and Naturalists was held in Poznań 11-15 September 1933 under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland, Prof Dr Ignacy Mościcki. Abramowicz attended this Congress and delivered two lectures On automorphic functions (Polish) and On the derivative of an implicit function (Polish). Both papers were published in the Proceedings of the Congress. In fact they were Abramowicz's final publications.

Abramowicz published 22 papers, three in Russian, six in French and thirteen in Polish. We note that the short paper in the Proceedings of the First Polish Mathematics Congress is not included as one of these 22 papers. The papers involve the range of topics that he worked on, in particular the theory of analytical functions, the properties of automorphic functions and groups, and hypergeometric functions. The 22 papers are listed in [9] where Lech Maligranda gives an excellent account of the mathematics studied by Abramowicz.

On 1 September 1935, Abramowicz was promoted to associate professor. He had some health problems, however, and in September 1936 he went into hospital to undergo what should have been a fairly routine operation to have his appendix removed. It appears that a mistake was made in giving him a blood transfusion in that he was given the wrong blood type. As a result of this error, he died on 13 September. He was buried in St Martin's Cemetery on Bukowska Street, Poznań but when the Cemetery was closed down in 1942, his body was exhumed and buried in the Resurrection of the Lord cemetery on Debiec Street. This cemetery now appears to be somewhat neglected but the position of Abramowicz's grave is marked with a modern memorial.
Other Mathematicians born in Poland
A Poster of Kazimierz Abramowicz

References (show)

  1. W Alexiewicz, Abramowicz Kazimierz (1889-1936) (Polish), in Antoni Gąsiorowski and Jerzy Topolski (eds.), Wielkopolski Słownik Biograficzny (PWN, Warsaw-Poznań 1983), 18.
  2. W A Dobrowolski, Kazimierz Abramowicz w Kijowie: przyczynek do polsko-ukraińskich związków naukowo-kulturalnych (Polish), Kwartainik Historii Nauki I Techniki 19 (3) (974), 547-551.
    https://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Kwartalnik_Historii_Nauki_i_Techniki/Kwartalnik_Historii_Nauki_i_Techniki-r1974-t19-n3/Kwartalnik_Historii_Nauki_i_Techniki-r1974-t19-n3-s547-551/Kwartalnik_Historii_Nauki_i_Techniki-r1974-t19-n3-s547-551.pdf
  3. S Dobrzycki, Abramowicz Kazimierz - biographical note and bibliography, file no. Do-I-15-7, Archive of Polish Mathematicians (IM PAN Library, Warsaw).
  4. S Domoradzki and M Stawiska, Polish mathematicians and mathematics in World War I. Part II. Russian Empire, Studia Historae Scientiarum 18 (2019), 55-92.
  5. R Duda, Abramowicz Kazimierz (1888-1936) (Polish), in Mathematicians of the 19th and 20th Centuries Associated with Poland (University of Wrocław Publishing House, Wrocław, 2012), 42-43.
  6. M Jaroszewska and J Musielak, Mathematicians of Poznań 1919-1939 (Polish), in S Jakóbczak and J Stokłosa (eds.) Breaking the Enigma Code, Poznań Monument to Polish Cryptologists (Poznań Publishing House of the Society of Friends of Science, Poznań).
  7. Dr Kazimierz Abramowicz and the list of works published in print, in Chronicle of the University of Poznań for the school year 1928-29 (Poznan, 1930), 137-139.
  8. S Kolankowski, Abramowicz Kazimierz (1889-1936) (Polish), in S Domoradzki, Z Pawlikowska-Brozek and D Weglowska Dictionary (eds.), Biographical of Polish Mathematicians (Tarnobrzeg, 2003).
  9. L Maligranda, Kazimierz Abramowicz (1888-1936) (Polish), Wiadomości Matematyczne 52 (2) (2016), 251-288.
  10. L Maligranda, Kazimierz Abramowicz (1888-1936) - life and work (Polish), Lecture delivered on 9 June 2014 at the XXVIII Scientific Conference on the History of Mathematics, History of Polish Mathematics in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Bedlewo, 9-13 June 2014).
  11. R Murawski, Kazimierz Abramowicz, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań (2024).
    https://wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/faculty/history/biographical-sketches/kazimierz-abramowicz
  12. W Orlicz, Mathematics in the Poznań centre (1919-1969) (Polish), in Science in Greater Poland (Poznań Publishing House, Poznań, 1973), 199-230.
  13. A Peretiakowicz and M Sobeski, Abramowicz Kazimierz (Polish), in Contemporary Polish Culture (Poznań, 1932), 1.
  14. M Przeniosło, Polish Mathematicians in the Interwar Period. A Historical Study (Polish) (Publishing House of the Jan Kochanowski University of Humanities and Sciences, Kielce).
  15. A Wrzosek, University of Poznań in the first years of its existence (1919-1929) (Polish) (Commemorative Book, Poznań, 2024).

Additional Resources (show)

Other websites about Kazimierz Abramowicz:

  1. MathSciNet Author profile
  2. zbMATH entry

Cross-references (show)

Written by J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Last Update November 2024