Stanisław Łojasiewicz ( ; 9 October 1926 – 14 November 2002) was a Polish mathematician, professor at the Jagiellonian University and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences known for his work in real algebraic geometry and theory of distributions..
Early life and education Stanisław Łojasiewicz was born in 1926 in Warsaw to father Stanisław, who served as captain in the Polish Army. In 1945, he was admitted to the Jagiellonian University. During his studies he was particularly interested in the theory of differential equations and was influenced by Tadeusz Ważewski. In 1950, he was awarded a doctorate for his work in this branch of mathematics.
Career At the end of the 1950s, Łojasiewicz solved the problem of distribution division by analytic functions, introducing the %C5%81ojasiewicz inequality. Its solution opened the road to important results in the new theory of partial differential equations. The method established by Łojasiewicz led him to advance the theory of semianalytic sets, which opened an important chapter in modern analysis.
From 1956 to 1960, Łojasiewicz taught at universities in Kingston, Chicago, Berkeley and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. In 1962, he became professor at the Jagiellonian University. In 1967-68, he worked at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques where he produced an elegant proof of the Malgrange preparation theorem.
Honours and awards In 1970, Łojasiewicz delivered an invited address on the subject of semianalytic geometry at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice, France. In 1971, Łojasiewicz became a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and in 1980, its full member.
In 1984, Łojasiewicz was awarded the Wacław Sierpiński Medal. The following year, he accepted the Jurzykowski Prize. In 1998, he became the recipient of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Commander's Cross with Star).
Death and legacy On 14 November 2002, Łojasiewicz died of heart attack when returning from a scientific conference in Italy. He was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.
The Łojasiewicz Lectures are a series of annual lectures in mathematics given at the Jagiellonian University in honour of Łojasiewicz. YearLecturerUniversityCountryTitle2010Shing-Tung YauHarvard UniversityChina / United StatesCoupled system of Hermitian metrics with Hermitian Yang-Mills system2011Richard S. HamiltonColumbia UniversityUnited StatesThe Ricci flow in lower dimensions2012Bernard MalgrangeUniversité Henri PoincaréFranceDifferential algebraic groups2013Neil TrudingerAustralian National UniversityAustraliaOptimal transportation in the 21st century2014Fernando Codá MarquezPrinceton UniversityBrazil / United StatesThe min-max theory of minimal surfaces and applications2015Noga AlonTel Aviv UniversityIsraelSignrank and its applications in combinatorics and complexity2017Artur AvilaInstituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada / Centre national de la recherche scientifiqueBrazil / FranceOne-frequency Schrödinger operators and the almost reducibility conjecture2018Luis A. CaffarelliUniversity of Texas at AustinArgentina / United StatesSome models of segregation2023Maksym RadziwillUniversity of Texas at AustinPoland / Canada / United StatesRecent developments in analytic number theory2024László LovászEötvös Loránd UniversityHungaryThe infinite is a good approximation of the very large finite2025Peter SarnakPrinceton UniversityUnited StatesThe complexity of divisors of a number2026Tom HutchcroftCalifornia Institute of Technology / Princeton UniversityUnited Kingdom / United StatesDimension dependence of critical phenomena
See also Gradient conjecture Real algebraic geometry List of Polish mathematicians
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