Ulam Biography

The Ulam was born in Lviv at that time Lemberg-the capital of Galicia as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was the son of lawyer Joseph Ulam. When he was five years old, the family had to move: the city was occupied by Russian troops. Later, due to the fact that the First World Father was an officer at the headquarters, the crossings became familiar. Remembering how his fascination with science began, the olam spoke of a popular book on astronomy.

A little later, his uncle noticed his hobby and gave the boy a small telescope. The first independent activities of mathematics are also associated with astronomy. Stanislav attracted the riddle of the coma Enke, whose circulation period decreased, and unevenly. Astronomers proposed various explanations of this phenomenon, but could not agree. This was a very curious mental attempt, because then I tried to make calculations, guided rather than my inner instinct in conjunction with reasoning than operating with numbers and symbols, ”wrote the olam.

He was also spurred by discussions of the theory of relativity to the boy then. His efforts to understand the theory and its consequences, albeit without delving into calculations, did not go in vain. As his father said, “this little boy seems to understand Einstein himself! It is not surprising that Stanislav’s school mathematics did not particularly attract, he was more engaged in his own, and his zeal can be envied.

He read several books by a teenager, for which he had to study what they had not yet passed at school. Ulam was lucky to meet caring teachers, and to hear lectures of outstanding scientists who came to Lviv to the Congress of mathematicians. The reports were made by Hugo Steingauz, whose books Stanislav have already read, Stefan Banami we will meet with him and John von Neumann, although the olam did not get to his lectures.

After graduation, the question arose: where to go further? Father would like to see him by a lawyer, he himself would prefer an academic career and with his Jewish roots it was very difficult. Stanislav stopped his choice at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. Having acted, he realized how exciting mathematics was, and focused on this subject. A capable and indifferent student was quickly noticed by teachers, some of whom were engaged in him, set up tasks, answered questions.

Often, several students and teachers were already gathered together with the banach somewhere to discuss their mathematical problem. In one of the meetings of the Scottish cafe, mathematicians kept a special notebook, where they could record tasks and solutions. Later he will become known as a Scottish book. For more than two years, I generally neglected passing exams, which were usually mandatory for transfer to the subsequent course, and the professors, who knew about my original work, looked at it through fingers.

And so I, in the end, still had to hand them over - all at a time. I studied for several months, passed something like a comprehensive exam and wrote a dissertation for a master's degree, the theme of which he came up with. I worked on her for a week, and another night from ten in the evening to four in the morning, I went to decorate it on paper. ” At this time, the olam made several travels to Switzerland, England, getting acquainted with famous mathematicians, speaking with reports and lectures.

In April, he received a place in a scientific society in Harvard. As the political crisis deepens in Europe, and then with the outbreak of war, the conversations of emigrant scientists were increasingly not concerned about mathematics, but, in the words of von Neumann, “the rest of the universe”. Many years later, mentioning in the autobiography of many familiar student years the same Polish students or teachers, the olam often added “killed by the Germans in the year”, “killed by the Germans on June 4”.

In m, being a professor at the University of Wisconsin, the olam through von Neumann received an invitation to Los Alamos, to a project for the development of atomic weapons. There he faced considerable difficulties due to the fact that he had never been engaged in experimental physics. However, work on the project required the efforts of many mathematicians, it was associated with complex calculations for which new computing machines were also used at that time.

For some time, the olam worked with Edward Teler on the project of the hydrogen bomb, later joined the group led by Enriko Fermi. In Los Alamos, he met many acquaintances from Princeton University and Poland, worked with Richard Feynman, who also left memories of working on the project “You, of course, are joking, Mr. Feynman! In particular, he worked on the method of assessing probability, for example, in gambling, based on accident.

Now this method is known as the Monte Carlo method. At various US universities, the Ulam taught until the end of his life - in the year he died of a heart attack.