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Zofia Szmydt
Zofia Szmydt died 2010.jpg
Born (1923-07-29)July 29, 1923
Warsaw
Died November 26, 2010(2010-11-26) (aged 87)
Citizenship Polish
Alma mater Jagiellonian University
Awards Stefan Banach Prize
Scientific career
Fields Differential equations
Institutions Jagiellonian University,
University of Warsaw
Thesis O całkach pierwszych równania różniczkowego
Doctoral advisor Tadeusz Ważewski

Zofia Szmydt (born July 29, 1923 – died November 26, 2010) was a Polish mathematician. She worked on topics like differential equations, which are math problems about how things change. She also studied potential theory and the theory of distributions, which are advanced areas of math. In 1956, she won the Stefan Banach Prize, a very important award for mathematicians in Poland.

Life of Zofia Szmydt

Zofia Szmydt was born in Warsaw, Poland, on July 29, 1923. Her mother, Zofia Szmydtowa, was a historian and a philologist. This means her mother studied history and languages.

Zofia went to the University of Warsaw during World War II. Because of the war, she had to attend classes in secret. After the Warsaw Uprising, a big fight in Warsaw, she and her family were forced to move to Krakow.

In 1946, Zofia finished her math degree at the Jagiellonian University. She earned her PhD in 1949. Her main teacher for her PhD was Tadeusz Ważewski.

Zofia Szmydt passed away on November 27, 2010.

Her Career in Math

Zofia Szmydt worked at the Jagiellonian University until 1952. From 1949 to 1971, she was also a member of the Mathematical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This is a top science organization in Poland.

In 1971, she started working at the University of Warsaw. She became a full professor there in 1984. A professor is a high-level teacher and researcher at a university. She retired from her work in 1993.

What She Studied

Zofia Szmydt did important work in math. In 1951, she wrote a paper about how solutions to certain differential equations behave over time. She used a special math method to understand this better.

She also worked on a type of math problem called "hyperbolic differential equations." In 1957, she found a new way to solve a big group of these problems. This new way of solving them became known as the "Szmydt problem" in math.

In 1971, Zofia wrote a textbook called Fourier Transformation and Linear Differential Equations. This was the first book on this topic published in the Polish language. She wanted to help students learn about partial differential equations. These are math equations used to describe things like heat flow or how waves move.

Later, in 1990, she wrote about "Paley–Wiener theorems for the Mellin transformations." This was about how different math ideas connect to each other.

Awards and Honours

Zofia Szmydt received several awards for her amazing work.

  • In 1956, she won the Stefan Banach Prize from the Polish Academy of Sciences. She got this award for her research on how to use special math methods to solve nonlinear ordinary differential equations.
  • In 1973, she was given the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. This is a very high honor in Poland, given for great service to the country. She received it for her contributions to teaching math.

Selected Works

  • Fourier Transformation and Linear Differential Equations (1971)
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