The Times-Mail, Bedford, Indiana.
Monday, 27 August 1951.
Bloomington.

A new magazine, "The Journal of Rational Mechanics and Analysis," is to be published by the Institute for Applied Mathematics of Indiana University, bringing to 19 the total of special periodicals edited on the Indiana University campus. Editors of the new magazine will be Prof T Y Thomas, head of the Indiana University. Mathematics Department, and Prof C E Truesdell, assisted by Profs David Gilbarg, Vaclav Hlavaty and E F Hopf. "The purpose of the magazine," Thomas announced, "is to treat mechanical problems in a rigorous, mathematical way. The emphasis will go on basic principals, rather than on particular engineering The magazine will be international in scope, and an advisory board of 30 eminent mathematicians of several countries will assist in its preparation."

It is to appear quarterly, with the first issue planned for January, 1952.

COSMOS EQUATIONS OF EINSTEIN SOLVED.

By William L Laurence, The New York Times.
Thursday, 30 July 1953.

A mathematical map that promises to open roads through the intellectual jungles of the cosmos, which Prof Albert Einstein has been seeking to penetrate for more than thirty years, was outlined yesterday at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, by Prof Vaclav Hlavaty, one of the world's select group of experts on the highly involved mathematics of multi-dimensional space. Professor Hlavaty (pronounced La'vaty), a refugee from Communist Czechoslovakia, is a member of Indiana's Graduate Institute for Applied Mathematics. In working out his pioneer map, of which much detail still remains to be filled in, Professor Hlavaty has achieved solutions to the equations in Professor Einstein's 1953 mathematical model of the universe, which Professor Einstein himself described as "gropings in the dark" and Erwin Schrödinger, one of the world's top mathematical physicists, described as "next to impossible" of solution. The solutions, Professor Hlavaty said, lend themselves to physical interpretation, and this opens the possibility at least to devise experiments for testing Professor Einstein's latest Unified Field Theory, which Professor Einstein, admitted he had so far been unable to do. The solutions of the Einstein equations reveal, Dr Hlavaty said, that electromagnetism is the basis of the universe. This goes one step further than Professor Einstein had anticipated when he sought to unify gravitation and electromagnetism, the two principal forces in which the universe manifests itself, under one set of mathematical laws.

Outgrowth of Relativity Theory

According to Dr Hlavaty's solution of the Einstein equations, electromagnetism is the basis of all cosmic forces - gravitation, as well as matter and energy, being built up out of the all-pervading all embracing electromagnetic field.

The electromagnetic field, Dr Hlavaty's solutions of the Einstein equations reveal, grows logically out of the geometrical properties of the four-dimensional space-time manifold of the Einstein General Relativity Theory. According to the original version of that theory, only gravitation grew out of the geometry of the four-dimensional curved space-time continuum, electromagnetism somehow not being accounted for in the theory. Furthermore, gravitation, according to the original theory published in 1916, depended on the presence of matter, no gravitation being possible without matter.

Dr Hlavaty's solutions have revealed the need for drastic changes in the original concepts of general relativity. Instead of two prime cosmic fields, gravitation and electromagnetism, flowing parallel to each other like two mighty streams originating from one source, there is now only one great ocean of electromagnetism, out of which and into which flow the streams of gravitation, matter and energy.

Thus instead of unifying gravitation and electromagnetism as offspring of a common ancestor, the latter becomes the progenitor of the former.

New Possibilities Held Opened

The solution show, Dr Hlavaty said, that it is possible to have gravitation without matter, a concept not permitted under the original general relativity theory. They also reveal that it is possible for space to exist without gravity and without matter, yet it still would be governed by the electromagnetic field.

In announcing his latest version for a Unified Field Theory last March, Dr Einstein had stated that he "had not yet found a practical way to confront the results of the theory with experimental evidence."

Professor Hlavaty's solutions, Dr Einstein said yesterday, open the possibility for just such confrontation.

"If this is true," Dr Hlavaty quoted Dr Einstein as having said, "this is the most important thing." Professor. Einstein, according to Dr Hlavaty, had told him that "your theory is a definite improvement of my theory."

However, Dr Hlavaty added, "Einstein is a genius while I am only a mathematician."

The corroboration by experiment of Professor Einstein's formula in his special relativity theory of 1905, which revealed that matter and energy were equivalent, and that one gram of matter was the equivalent of 25,000,000 kilowatt-hours of energy, laid the foundation for the development of the atomic bomb and the promise of vast industrial power from atomic energy.

Radio's Development Recalled

Similarly the confirmation by experiment of James Clerk Maxwell's equations, which revealed that light was electromagnetic in nature, led to the discovery of radio waves and to the age of radio and television. Many other similar instances in the history of science may be cited.

Hence the opening of the possibility of devising physical experiments for testing Professor Einstein's latest equations, as elaborated on by Professor Hlavaty, justifies expectations of further revolutionary discoveries to result if the experiments prove the theory correct. Successful tests may lead to the discovery of cosmic forces at present entirely unsuspected, just as the existence of atomic energy was unknown some fifty odd years ago. They may also lead to the utilisation and harnessing of known forces such as the universal gravitation.

Professor Hlavaty hopes that his method may at last build a bridge linking the two major theories of the universe - the relativity and the quantum. The former deals with the enormous scale of the forces interacting in the universe at large, through all the ages, while the latter deals with the minute scale of forces interacting within the infinitesimal spaces of the nuclei of atoms in fraction of fraction's of millionths of a second.

At present, there is no link between the theory relating to the universe of the galaxies in the four-dimensional space-time manifold and the universe of the nuclei of atoms of which the galaxies are constituted. The universe, according to relativity, is governed by cause and effect, whereas, according to the quantum theory, chance governs all, a concept that led Professor Einstein to remark that he "could not believe that God played dice with the cosmos."

Spinors Used in Solution

Professor Hlavaty said that his solutions for the equations of the Einstein Unified Field Theory make use of spinors, a mathematical tool also used in quantum mechanics. This leads him to believe that the spinor theory will serve as the first arch of a possible bridge linking the unified field theory, which also embraces relativity, with the quantum theory. He is now attempting to formulate such a bridge.

Professor Schrödinger, now at the Institute for Advanced Study in Dublin, Ireland, wrote that he was "full of admiration for the skilfulness with which Dr Hlavaty handled this obstreperous problem," according to a member of the University of Indiana mathematics faculty.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Dr Hlavaty served, on the faculty of Charles University, Prague (where Professor Einstein had also served at one time), from 1927 to 1948. He was elected to the Czech Parliament in 1946, after he had been asked to enter politics by the late President Eduard Benes, because so many statesmen had been killed by the Nazis during their occupation of the country. He barely escaped with his life when the Communist putsch took place. Escaping to France, he served as Professor of Mathematics at the Sorbonne for one term in 1948. In the fall of that year he joined the Indiana University mathematics department. The Graduate Institute for Applied Mathematics, of which he now is a member, was founded in 1950. "It took two years of an upset stomach," Professor Hlavaty said yesterday, "before I came upon the right solutions of Einstein's equations. It was the best detective story I have ever experienced."

The Daily Register, Red Bank, New Jersey.
Monday, 13 January 1969.
Bloomington.

Death has claimed Dr. Vaclav Hlavaty, who won wide acclaim for his mathematical solution to Einstein's unified field theory equations.

Hlavaty, 74, was found dead in his Bloomington home Saturday. He had lived alone since his wife died in 1967 and had been ill several months. He was a mathematics professor at Indiana University which named him distinguished service professor emeritus in 1964. The solution of the unified field theory equations, which Einstein called "groping in the dark," was described by Hlavaty's colleagues as "a tremendous intellectual exercise involving 64 unknowns." A native of Czechoslovakia, Hlavaty was elected a member of the Czech parliament in 1946 and left the country when Communists took over. He was an exchange professor at the Sorbonne in Paris before coming to Indiana in the fall of 1948.

The Reporter-Times from Martinsville, Indiana.
Monday, 13 January 1969.
Bloomington.

Dr Vaclav Hlavaty, 74, a distinguished Indiana University professor and world renowned mathematician, was found dead in his home Sunday. Hlavaty had been ill for several months. He gained world recognition for his solution to Einstein's unified field theory, a problem that had baffled other mathematicians.

Born in Czechoslovakia, he studied throughout Europe and was elected to the Czech parliament in 1946 when requested by President Benes to enter politics to help, replace the many statesmen killed by the Nazis during World War Il. Hlavaty left that country when the Communists took over and came to America and IU in 1948. He was the author of numerous articles and books on geometry. He served twice as president of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences in America which is dedicated to the maintaining of a free Czechoslovak culture outside Communist Czechoslovakia. Hlavaty was named distinguished service professor emeritus of mathematics at IU in 1964.

His wife, Olga, died in 1967. He was survived by a daughter, Mrs Baki Yusufzai, whose husband is a government official in Afghanistan.

The Central New Jersey Home News, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Monday, 13 January 1969.
Bloomington.

Death has claimed Dr Vaclav Hlavaty won wide acclaim for his mathematical solution to Einstein's unified field theory equations. Hlavaty, 74, was found dead in his Bloomington home Saturday. He had lived alone since his wife died in 1967 and had been ill several months. He was a mathematics professor at Indiana University which named him distinguished service professor emeritus in 1964.

The solution of the unified field theory equations, which Einstein called "groping in the dark," was described by Hlavaty's colleagues as "a tremendous intellectual exercise involving 64 unknowns." A native of Czechoslovakia, Hlavaty was elected a member of the Czech parliament in 1946 and left the country when communists took over. He was an exchange professor at the Sorbonne in Paris before coming to Indiana in the fall 1948. He was professor of mathematics at Charles University in 1925-48 and visiting professor at Princeton University and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1937-38. On sabbatical from Indiana in 1961, he completed a seven-month, the tour of 19 cities in 14 countries delivering around 60 lectures in English, French and Italian on relativity, the unified field theory and geometry. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs Baki Yusufzai, whose husband is an Indiana graduate now a government officer in Kabull. Afghanistan. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Monday, 13 January 1969.
Bloomington.

Dr Vaclav Hlavaty, 74 years old, Bloomington, one of the world's foremost mathematicians and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, was found dead in his home late Saturday.

Prof Hlavaty was a world-renowned expert on relativity and was best known for his brilliant mathematical solution of Einstein's Unified Field Theory.

A native of Czechoslovakia, he was elected a member of the Czech parliament in 1946 and left the country when the Communists took over. He was an exchange professor at the Sorbonne in Paris before coming to Indiana University in the fall of 1948.

In 1950, already established as a leading authority on many-dimensional geometry, Prof Hlavaty turned his attention to relativity. Einstein had made public a set of equations for a Unified Field Theory to explain the workings of the universe in one set of laws. He proposed these equations without mathematical solution, describing them himself as "a groping in the dark."

Solution of the equations was termed "next to Impossible," but Dr Hlavaty was able to accomplish the feat, a tremendous intellectual exercise involving 64 unknowns.

Dr Hlavaty attended Charles University in Prague, where he received the Ph.D. degree. He also attended the Technical University, Delft, Netherlands; the Sorbonne, Paris; the University of Rome, and Oxford University.

He was a professor of mathematics at Charles University 1925-48, and visiting professor at Princeton University and member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1937-38.

Prof Hlavaty became the first president of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences in America when it was organised in 1956, and held this post again from 1966 to 1968.

He was the author of numerous articles and books in the field of differential geometry, and of "The Geometry of Einstein's Unified Field Theory," published in Holland in 1958.

He was a member of the American Mathematical Society, the International Free Academy of Sciences and Letters of Paris, France; the Indiana Academy of Science, and Sigma Xi Fraternity. He also was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Prague and the Royal Society of Sciences in Bucharest before Czechoslovakia and Romania became Communist dominated.

Dr Hlavaty was a co-editor of the mathematical journal "Tensor," published in Japan, and of "Reconditli de Sircolo Mathematics,", published in Italy.

In 1961, on sabbatical leave from Indiana University, he made a seven-months, around-the-world tour to 19 cities in 14 countries, delivering 60 lectures in English, French and Italian on relativity, the Unified Field Theory, and geometry.

Dr Hlavaty's wife, Mrs Olga Hlavaty, died in 1967. He is survived by a daughter, Mrs Baki Yusufzai, whose husband is an Indiana University graduate and is now a government official in Kabul, Afghanistan, and four grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.