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.[1] The Polish people have made considerable contributions in the fields of science, technology and mathematics.[2] 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.[3]
In 1773 King Stanisław August Poniatowski established the Commission of National Education (Polish: Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN), the world's first ministry of education.[4]
After the third partition of Poland, in 1795, no Polish state existed.[5] 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.[6]
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)[7][8] 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.[9]
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.[10] 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.
- ^ "History of the Jagiellonian University". en.uj.edu.pl. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
- ^ Nodzyńska, Małgorzata; Cieśla, Paweł (2012). From alchemy to the present day - the choice of biographies of Polish scientists. Cracow: Pedagogical University of Kraków. ISBN 978-83-7271-768-9.
- ^ "A History of the Scientific Revolution, 1500-1700". brewminate.com. 20 August 2020. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
- ^ Supron, Uladzislau (10 July 2018). "Komisja Edukacji Narodowej". ruj.uj.edu.pl. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
- ^ "The Duchy of Warsaw". napoleon.org. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ^ Patryk Zakrzewski (20 December 2018). "Ignacy Domeyko: The Philomath of Chile". culture.pl. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
- ^ Piotr Abryszewski. "BEAUTIFUL MINDS. EXTRAORDINARY MATHEMATICIANS FROM LWÓW". poland.pl. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ^ Alex Bellos (7 March 2022). "Can you solve it? The maths of Lviv". theguardian.com. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ^ A Pictorial History of Rockets. NASA. 2011.
- ^ 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. (in Polish)
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