Education has been of prime interest to Poland's rulers since the early 12th century. The catalog of the library of the Cathedral Chapter in Kraków dating from 1110 shows that Polish scholars already then had access to western European literature. In 1364, King Casimir III the Great founded the Cracow Academy, which would become one of the great universities of Europe. The Polish people have made considerable contributions in the fields of science, technology and mathematics. The list of famous scientists in Poland begins in earnest with the polymath, astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, who formulated the heliocentric theory and sparked the European Scientific Revolution.
In 1773, King Stanisław August Poniatowski established the Commission of National Education (, KEN), the world's first ministry of education.
After the third partition of Poland, in 1795, no Polish state existed. The 19th and 20th centuries saw many Polish scientists working abroad. One of them was Maria Skłodowska-Curie, a physicist and chemist living in France. Another noteworthy one was Ignacy Domeyko, a geologist and mineralogist who worked in Chile.
In the first half of the 20th century, Poland was a flourishing center of mathematics. Outstanding Polish mathematicians formed the Lwów School of Mathematics (with Stefan Banach, Hugo Steinhaus, Stanisław Ulam) and Warsaw School of Mathematics (with Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Kuratowski, Wacław Sierpiński). The events of World War II pushed many of them into exile. Such was the case of Benoît Mandelbrot, whose family left Poland when he was still a child. An alumnus of the Warsaw School of Mathematics was Antoni Zygmund, one of the shapers of 20th-century mathematical analysis. According to NASA, Polish scientists were among the pioneers of rocketry.
Today Poland has over 100 institutions of post-secondary education—technical, medical, economic, as well as 500 universities—which are located in most major cities such as Gdańsk, Kraków, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Rzeszów, Toruń, Warsaw and Wrocław.Central Statistical Office (Poland): Studenci szkół wyższych (łącznie z cudzoziemcami) na dzień 30 XI 2008. Number of students at Poland's institutions of higher education, as of 30 November 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2012. They employ over 61,000 scientists and scholars. Another 300 research and development institutes are home to some 10,000 researchers. There are, in addition, a number of smaller laboratories. All together, these institutions support some 91,000 scientists and scholars.
Timeline
From 2001
Monika Mościbrodzka, Polish astrophysicist known for pioneering the development of numerical astrophysics, which can be used in combination with experimental observations to test general relativity. These studies contributed to the first ever direct image of a black hole, specifically, the supermassive black hole at the centre of Messier 87 (2019). Olga Malinkiewicz, Polish physicist and inventor of a method of producing solar cells based on perovskites using inkjet printing. Lidia Morawska, Polish-Australian physicist whose work focuses on fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health, with a specific focus on atmospheric fine, ultrafine and nanoparticles. In 2020, she contributed to the area of airborne infection transmission of viruses, including COVID-19. Jarosław Duda, a graduate and employee of Jagiellonian University and inventor of asymmetric numeral systems (ANS), a family of entropy encoding methods widely used in data compression, to encode data e.g. by Facebook Zstandard, Apple LZFSE, CRAM or JPEG XL (2006). Poland joins the European Southern Observatory ESO (2014), 16-nation intergovernmental research organisation for astronomy. Poland becomes a member the European Space Agency (2012). PW-Sat, the first Polish satellite was launched into space (2012); other Polish satellites include Lem and Heweliusz. Piorun (missile), a man-portable air-defense system designed to destroy low-flying aircraft, airplanes, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles. AHS Krab, a 155 mm NATO-compatible self-propelled tracked gun-howitzer designed in Poland by Huta Stalowa Wola. Polish Artificial Heart Program launched by the Foundation for Cardiac Surgery Development in Zabrze. Graphene acquisition, in 2011 the Institute of Electronic Materials Technology and Department of Physics, Warsaw University announced a joint development of acquisition technology of large pieces of graphene with the best quality so far. In April the same year, Polish scientists with support from the Polish Ministry of Economy began the procedure for granting a patent to their discovery around the world. Maximal entropy random walk (MERW) is a popular type of biased random walk on a graph, used e.g. in complex network analysis, image analysis, tractography, physics, which was started by article from Jagiellonian University. Sylwester Porowski, Polish physicist specializing in solid-state and high pressure physics. In 2001, he led a team of Polish scientists who built a blue semiconductor laser, first blue laser in Poland and third in the world. Wojciech H. Zurek, Polish-American theoretical physicist and a leading authority on quantum theory, especially decoherence and non-equilibrium dynamics of symmetry breaking and resulting defect generation; Kibble–Zurek mechanism, Kibble–Zurek scaling laws, quantum discord, einselection, quantum Darwinism, no-cloning theorem. Józef H. Przytycki, Polish mathematician, HOMFLYPT polynomial (1987)
1951–2000
Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Polish-American chemist, discoverer of atom-transfer radical polymerization (1995), a novel method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made. Bohdan Paczyński, Polish astronomer, credited with the development of a new method of detecting space objects and establishing their mass using the gravitational lenses effect; he is acknowledged for coining the term microlensing. Artur Ekert, Polish physicist; one of the pioneers of quantum cryptography known for quantum entanglement swapping and E91 protocol. Janusz Pawliszyn, Polish chemist, inventor of solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Andrzej Tarkowski, Polish embryologist and Professor of Warsaw University, known for his pioneering research on embryos and blastomeres, which have created theoretical and practical basis for achievements of biology and medicine of the twentieth century – in vitro fertilization, cloning and stem cell discovery. Janusz Brzozowski, Polish-Canadian computer scientist known for developing the Brzozowski derivative and Brzozowski's algorithm. Aleksander Wolszczan, Polish astronomer who, in 1992, co-discovered the first ever extrasolar planet – PSR 1257+12, a pulsar located 2,630 light years from Earth. It is believed to be orbited by at least four planets. Tadeusz Reichstein, Polish-Swiss chemist and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (1950), who was awarded for his work on the isolation of cortisone. Władysław Świątecki, Polish physicist noted for pioneering research in nuclear physics including the nuclear shell model and for independently predicting the existence of the so-called island of stability. Jack Tramiel, Polish American businessman, best known for founding Commodore International; Commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home computers produced while he was running the company. Foundation For Polish Science – a non-governmental organisation aiming at supporting academics with high potential – since (1991) Stanisław Kamiński, Polish aeronautical engineer, designer of PZL W-3 Sokół, a helicopter, FAA certificate in (1989) Paul Baran, Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks; he was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the dominant basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide. Henryk Magnuski, Polish telecommunications engineer who worked for Motorola in Chicago. He was the inventor of the first Walkie-Talkies and one of the authors of his company success in the fields of radio communication.
Benoit Mandelbrot, mathematician of Polish descent; known for developing a theory of "roughness and self-similarity" and significant contributions to fractal geometry and chaos theory; Mandelbrot set. Flaris LAR01, Polish five-seat single-engined very light jet, currently under development by Metal-Master of Jelenia Góra. Solaris Urbino 18 Hybrid, a low-floor articulated hybrid buses from the Solaris Urbino series for city communication services manufactured by Solaris Bus & Coach in Bolechowo near Poznań in Poland. PZL Kania, a helicopter, first prototype (1979), FAR-29 certificate (early 1980s). Odra (computer), a line of computers manufactured in Wrocław (1959/1960) FB MSBS, an assault rifle developed by FB "Łucznik" Radom FB Beryl, an assault rifle designed and produced by the Łucznik Arms Factory in the city of Radom Polish Polar Station, Hornsund was established in 1957. PZL SW-4 Puszczyk, Polish light single-engine multipurpose helicopter manufactured by PZL Swidnik EP-09, 'B0B0' Polish electric locomotive class
PT-91, Polish main battle tank. Designed at the Research and Development Centre of Mechanical Systems OBRUM (Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Urządzeń Mechanicznych) in Gliwice PZR Grom, an anti-aircraft missile 206FM, class minesweeper (NATO: "Krogulec") Meteor (rocket), a series of sounding rockets (1963) PZL TS-11 Iskra, a jet trainer aircraft, used by the air forces of Poland and India (1960) Lim-6, attack aircraft (1955) Andrzej Trybulec, Polish mathematician who designed the Mizar system in 1973. The system consists of a formal language for writing mathematical definitions and proofs, a proof assistant, which is able to mechanically check proofs written in this language, and a library of formalized mathematics, which can be used in the proof of new theorems; it was designed by Mieczysław G. Bekker, Polish engineer and scientist, co-authored the general idea and contributed significantly to the design and construction of the Lunar Roving Vehicle used by missions Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 on the Moon. The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, was founded in 1951. Hilary Koprowski, Polish virologist and immunologist, inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine (1950).Hilary Koprowski, Who Developed First Live-Virus Polio Vaccine, Dies at 96 – The New York Times, 20 April 2013.
Andrzej Udalski, initiator of the OGLE project, which led to the such significant discoveries as the detection of the first merger of a binary star, first Cepheid pulsating stars in the eclipsing binary systems, unique nova systems, quasars and galaxies. Stefania Jabłońska, Polish physician; in 1972 Jabłońska proposed the association of the human papilloma viruses with skin cancer in epidermodysplasia verruciformis; in 1978 Jabłońska and Gerard Orth at the Pasteur Institute discovered HPV-5 in skin cancer; Jabłońska was awarded the 1985 Robert Koch Prize. Andrew Schally, Polish-American endocrinologist and Nobel Prize laureate (1977).Andrew V. Schally, "Andrew V. Schally", Encyclopædia Britannica. His research contributed to the discovery that the hypothalamus controls hormone production and release by the pituitary gland, which controls the regulation of other hormones in the body. Tomasz Dietl, Polish physicist; known for developing the theory, confirmed in recent years, of diluted ferromagnetic semiconductors, and for demonstrating new methods in controlling magnetization. Ryszard Horodecki, Polish physicist; he contributed largely to the field of quantum informatics and theoretical physics; Peres–Horodecki criterion.