More about Alfred Rosenblatt

We give four extracts about Alfred Rosenblatt. These are by Danuta Ciesielska, Władysław Ślebodzinski, Tomás Unger and Michel Helfgott.

1. Danuta Ciesielska.

Danuta Ciesielska has published several papers about Alfred Rosenblatt. She gave a lecture in Russian to the Seminar on the History of Mathematics at St Petersburg on 7 April 2016. Her lecture had the title On invariants in the early history of algebraic surface. Alfred Rosenblatt (1880-1947) and his results. We give her abstract for the lecture.

Danuta Ciesielska: Algebraic geometry and results of Alfred Rosenblatt.

Abstract: The names of Max Noether, Alfred Clebsch, Paul Gordan, Hieronymus Zeuthen and Italians: Guido Castelnuovo, Federico Enriques and Francesco Severi are best known for their results in the theory of algebraic surfaces in late 19th and early 20th centuries - arithmetic, geometric and linear genera, other invariants and relations among them, Noether's and Castelnuovo's inequalities ... But in the early 20th century a young Polish mathematician from Kraków published papers in the theory of algebraic surfaces which inspired those distinguished scholars from the Italian School of algebraic geometry. His name is Alfred Rosenblatt (1880-1947). Who was he?

Rosenblatt studied mathematics and its applications in Kraków (1902-1904 and 1905-1907) and Göttingen (1908-1909). He obtained his PhD and habilitation (thesis: "Sur certaines classes de surfaces algébriques irrégulières et sur les transformations birationnelles de ces surfaces en elles-memes", Bull. Internat. Acad. Cracovie Cl. Sci. Math. Natur. Ser. A Sci. Math. (1912), 761-810), in mathematics from the Jagiellonian University but he never got a Chair in Kraków. In 1936 he moved to Lima, Peru. He obtained the Chair of Astronomy and Geodesy at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Rosenblatt published about 300 papers in many various fields of pure and applied mathematics: geometry, algebraic geometry, number theory, theory of analytic functions, ordinary and partial differential equations, probability, topology, mathematical physics, celestial mechanics, three body problem, hydrodynamics, fluid mechanics, lubrication theory, aerodynamics, optics, seismology, genetics, cosmology and the history of exact sciences. Rosenblatt actively participated in four International Congresses of Mathematicians, where he presented two invited talks and two short talks (Bologna and Zürich). He and his contribution to mathematics remain almost unknown for the general mathematical audience in Europe.

2. Władysław Ślebodzinski.

Władysław Ślebodzinski was a student at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow 1903-1908. He was four years younger than Alfred Rosenblatt but because Rosenblatt had studied engineering in Vienna before beginning his studies of mathematics and physics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, they were fellow students in Krakow.

Władysław Ślebodzinski's memories of Alfred Rosenblatt.

Rosenblatt was a very talented mathematician, dedicated entirely to science, which was possible for him due to his material conditions, freeing him from the need to apply for a teaching job. He towered over us with his knowledge of many directions of research in mathematics of that time. The collaboration with him over the last two years of my university studies brought me a lot of benefits. It was through him that I learned about set theory and its problems, and seven years before the publication of professor W Sierpinski's book too!

3. Tomás Unger.

Poland had an honorary consulate in Lima, Peru, beginning in 1923. Gerard Unger, an engineer who was a director of Braun Boveri, travelled to Peru with his family in 1937 for work reasons and stayed in that country when World War II broke out. He was a sister of Paula Rosenblatt, Alfred Rosenblatt's wife. During World War II Gerard Unger was appointed as the honorary Polish consul (by Radosław Sikorski who headed the Polish government in exile). He also lectured at the Technical University in Lima and was dean of the Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. He had a son, Tomás Unger who had been born in Krakow in 1930. Tomás Unger knew Alfred Rosenblatt during his years in Peru and gave the following description.

Tomás Unger's memories of Alfred Rosenblatt.

Paula Unger (Alfred's wife) was the sister of my father, Gerard Unger, who died in 1957, aged 54. She died in Lima in 1959, aged 74.

I knew Alfred Rosenblatt quite well, but I was too young to understand his work. I remember he spoke and wrote his notes in Greek, and occasionally talked classical Greek and Latin with my mother. He collected butterflies and seemed to know quite a bit about them. He even travelled to the jungle to collect them, quite a hard trip in those times.

Among his best students who visited him I remember Francisco Miró-Quesada Cantuarias (a known philosopher, still alive, over 90) and José Tola Pasquel. I also remember two American mathematicians who came to Lima during the war to visit him: George Birkhoff and Marshall Stone.

Birkhoff was tall and I remember Rosenblatt saying that his theory on aesthetics, whatever it was, was a load of BS. Stone was younger, always unkempt and careless about his clothes, according to my mother.

Rosenblatt had a vast library, over 2,000 books in several languages. When he died his wife donated all his books, notebooks (there were over 100 of them) and papers to the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, where they were lost, or at least not accounted for, as far as I know.

About Rosenblatt's death I remember this: right after the war he went to Princeton invited by his friend Mr Norbert Wiener. He travelled to New York by boat (Grace Line). He returned by the same means and brought me an autographed photograph of Albert Einstein, who was his friend. When he returned he was in very poor health (mentally), was hospitalised, and died of pneumonia, aged 67.

I am sorry to say there are no photographs of Rosenblatt that I know of. As he was 50 years older than me, and I am now 82, you can imagine there are no people left, except Francisco Miró-Quesada, who knew him or could tell us something about him.

All I can say is that he was more than a little eccentric, but highly respected. He spoke fluent German, French, Spanish, Latin, classical Greek and of course Polish. He would read me a book (Voltaire's history of Carol of Sweden) in Polish. When I picked up the book to read on my own, it turned out to be in French. He had this amazing gift for languages. I was the only child he had ever dealt with and he treated me as an adult, except when we reproduced famous battles with my toy soldiers and he behaved like a kid.

Among the papers that were given to the University of San Marcos was his lifetime correspondence with Poincaré and Levi-Civita, among other bundles of letters. It is a pity that nobody knows where they all ended up.

4. Michel Helfgott.

Michel Helfgott was a professor at East Tennessee State University who was interested in ways to improve the teaching of mathematics. He was at the conference 'Learn from the Masters' in Kristiansand, Norway, in 1988 and gave the lecture Improved teaching of the calculus through the use of historical materials. The lecture was published in the Proceedings of the conference.

Michel Helfgott on Alfred Rosenblatt.

The arrival at San Marcos, in 1936, of the Polish mathematician Alfred Rosenblatt radically changed Peruvian mathematics. Before him, Peruvian mathematics was isolated from the twentieth century European developments. In the ten years of tenacious work, until his unexpected death in 1947, he trained a whole generation of young mathematicians who, in turn, prepared others for graduate work abroad. The influence of this one outstanding scholar is remarkable.

Professor Rosenblatt brought with him from Europe the latest information on functional analysis, topology and other mathematical areas that was not available in Peru at that time. Besides producing over 290 papers, he taught many important mathematical topics.

It is pertinent to mention his book Análisis algebraico: numeros reales, conjuntos, succesiones infinitos, series y productos infinitos written in collaboration with Godofredo García, a Peruvian physicist. It is a work filled with historical references and acute observations.

Last Updated March 2025