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Professor EmeritusSteve Warschawski lived among the top mathematicians of two continents. With careful scholarship, he made lasting contributions to the theory of complex analysis, particularly to the theory of conformal mappings. With keen judgment, he guided two mathematics departments to eminence. With modest gratitude, he cemented many friendships along the way.
Warschawski was born April 18, 1904, in Lida, which is now part of the Soviet Union. The household language was German. In 1915, the German occupation of Lida caused him to move to the home of his maternal grandparents in Koenigsberg.
In 1924, he graduated from the gymnasium in Koenigsberg and entered the University of Koenigsberg. In 1926, he went to Goettingen to study for a doctoral degree. Some names of his teachers are familiar to complex analysts: Knopp, Rogosinski, Landau, Courant, and Herglotz. Warschawski started studying with a privatdozent, Alexander Ostrowski. When Ostrowski became a full professor in Basel, Switzerland, Warschawski moved there to complete work on his thesis. This research concerned the boundary behavior of conformal mapping.
In the fall of 1930, Warschawski returned to the famous University of Goettingen with an assistantship. Among the principal professors were H. Weyl and Emmy Noether. The seminar of Herglotz was particularly active.
With the rise of the Nazis in the spring of 1933, the possibility of a career in Germany ended. Warschawski received help from Julius Wolff, first in securing a one-year position at the University of Utrecht in Holland, and then a one-year position at Columbia University in New York. Warschawski was deeply grateful for that aid. He concluded the story of his exodus by recalling that Wolff perished during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
After several short-term university appointments, Warschawski secured a permanent position in 1939 at Washington University in St. Louis. In connection with the war effort, he taught extra courses; during one semester, he lectured 36 hours a week. (Steve objected to the mention of that load in an earlier biography. He was concerned that it might be thought that he had complained about the load. As he saw it, other people had it worse; he did not complain.)
A particularly important piece of research was done while he was at Washington University. An engineering colleague pointed out Theodorson's method of computing conformal mappings by successive approximation. Experience suggested that the technique worked. However, there was no proof that it always would work, and there was no measure of the accuracy of the approximations. Warschawski corrected both of these deficiencies in the theory.
For about a year, Warschawski was in the Applied Mathematics Group at Brown University with other prominent mathematicians including Loewner, Bergman, Bers, Marden, and Tamarkin. Then in 1945 he went to the University of Minnesota.
Warschawski married Ilse Kayser in March, 1947. She and Steve were gracious hosts of parties that were the social center of his mathematics department first at the University of Minnesota and then at the University of California, San Diego. The goodwill created at those parties was important in building dynamic departments at both universities.
In 1952, Warschawski was appointed chairman of the Mathematics Department in the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota. For the next 11 years, he added a couple of new faculty members each year. Most came as assistant professors. It is to his credit that he recognized talent early.
In 1963, Warschawski started building the mathematics department at the new UC cmapus at La Jolla. By the fall of 1964, he had a faculty of seven to handle the classes of 180 undergraduates and a few graduate students. From then, expansion was rapid. Although poor health forced Warschawski to give up the chairmanship in 1967, he had already formed the basis for a strong department.
In 1971, Warschawski became Emeritus Professor. He taught courses at UCSD from time to time until 1981. Also he spent three semesters in 1972 and 1973 as Distinguished Visiting Professor at San Diego State University.
In 1978, Warschawski was honored by the initiation of the S.E. Warschawski Assistant Professor at UCSD. This position is a two-year post awarded to a promising new Ph.D.
Warschawski's early research led to geometric conditions which insure that the Riemann mapping function from a disk onto a region has a derivative at a point or along an arc of the boundary circle. Later he was first to show that if the region has a continuously turning tangent, then the derivative and its reciprocal are in the Hardy class for each positive p. He obtained results on the existence and continuity of higher order derivatives. He made important contributions to approximation theory, minimal surfaces, and harmonic function theory.
His research provided starting points for his students. He had 19 Ph.D. students. Many of these students are active research mathematicians.
An impressive aspect of his publications is that one-third was published after he retired. At his 85th birthday party, he indicated that he had tried to prove that mathematics is not a game just for the young.
Professor Warschawski also kept involved in teaching. Even at 84, he gave guest lectures in the graduate complex analysis course. Word was passed among the graudate students that he was the one from whom to seek help in studying for the Complex Analysis Qualifying Examination. There were many students who benefited from his patience and generosity.
Steve Warschawski is survived by his wife and many friends, all of whom miss him greatly.
Carl H. FitzGerald
Burton Rodin
Helmut Rohrl
Warschawski was born April 18, 1904, in Lida, which is now part of the Soviet Union. The household language was German. In 1915, the German occupation of Lida caused him to move to the home of his maternal grandparents in Koenigsberg.
In 1924, he graduated from the gymnasium in Koenigsberg and entered the University of Koenigsberg. In 1926, he went to Goettingen to study for a doctoral degree. Some names of his teachers are familiar to complex analysts: Knopp, Rogosinski, Landau, Courant, and Herglotz. Warschawski started studying with a privatdozent, Alexander Ostrowski. When Ostrowski became a full professor in Basel, Switzerland, Warschawski moved there to complete work on his thesis. This research concerned the boundary behavior of conformal mapping.
In the fall of 1930, Warschawski returned to the famous University of Goettingen with an assistantship. Among the principal professors were H. Weyl and Emmy Noether. The seminar of Herglotz was particularly active.
With the rise of the Nazis in the spring of 1933, the possibility of a career in Germany ended. Warschawski received help from Julius Wolff, first in securing a one-year position at the University of Utrecht in Holland, and then a one-year position at Columbia University in New York. Warschawski was deeply grateful for that aid. He concluded the story of his exodus by recalling that Wolff perished during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
After several short-term university appointments, Warschawski secured a permanent position in 1939 at Washington University in St. Louis. In connection with the war effort, he taught extra courses; during one semester, he lectured 36 hours a week. (Steve objected to the mention of that load in an earlier biography. He was concerned that it might be thought that he had complained about the load. As he saw it, other people had it worse; he did not complain.)
A particularly important piece of research was done while he was at Washington University. An engineering colleague pointed out Theodorson's method of computing conformal mappings by successive approximation. Experience suggested that the technique worked. However, there was no proof that it always would work, and there was no measure of the accuracy of the approximations. Warschawski corrected both of these deficiencies in the theory.
For about a year, Warschawski was in the Applied Mathematics Group at Brown University with other prominent mathematicians including Loewner, Bergman, Bers, Marden, and Tamarkin. Then in 1945 he went to the University of Minnesota.
Warschawski married Ilse Kayser in March, 1947. She and Steve were gracious hosts of parties that were the social center of his mathematics department first at the University of Minnesota and then at the University of California, San Diego. The goodwill created at those parties was important in building dynamic departments at both universities.
In 1952, Warschawski was appointed chairman of the Mathematics Department in the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota. For the next 11 years, he added a couple of new faculty members each year. Most came as assistant professors. It is to his credit that he recognized talent early.
In 1963, Warschawski started building the mathematics department at the new UC cmapus at La Jolla. By the fall of 1964, he had a faculty of seven to handle the classes of 180 undergraduates and a few graduate students. From then, expansion was rapid. Although poor health forced Warschawski to give up the chairmanship in 1967, he had already formed the basis for a strong department.
In 1971, Warschawski became Emeritus Professor. He taught courses at UCSD from time to time until 1981. Also he spent three semesters in 1972 and 1973 as Distinguished Visiting Professor at San Diego State University.
In 1978, Warschawski was honored by the initiation of the S.E. Warschawski Assistant Professor at UCSD. This position is a two-year post awarded to a promising new Ph.D.
Warschawski's early research led to geometric conditions which insure that the Riemann mapping function from a disk onto a region has a derivative at a point or along an arc of the boundary circle. Later he was first to show that if the region has a continuously turning tangent, then the derivative and its reciprocal are in the Hardy class for each positive p. He obtained results on the existence and continuity of higher order derivatives. He made important contributions to approximation theory, minimal surfaces, and harmonic function theory.
His research provided starting points for his students. He had 19 Ph.D. students. Many of these students are active research mathematicians.
An impressive aspect of his publications is that one-third was published after he retired. At his 85th birthday party, he indicated that he had tried to prove that mathematics is not a game just for the young.
Professor Warschawski also kept involved in teaching. Even at 84, he gave guest lectures in the graduate complex analysis course. Word was passed among the graudate students that he was the one from whom to seek help in studying for the Complex Analysis Qualifying Examination. There were many students who benefited from his patience and generosity.
Steve Warschawski is survived by his wife and many friends, all of whom miss him greatly.
Carl H. FitzGerald
Burton Rodin
Helmut Rohrl
This University of California obituary is available at THIS LINK