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On the 6th of November 2008, President of the Polish Mathematical Society Professor Stefan Jackowski and President of Ericpol Telecom Jan Smela entered into an agreement establishing the International Stefan Banach Prize for a Doctoral Dissertation in the Mathematical Sciences.
The ceremony was held at the stylish Kawiarnia Noworolski in Rynek Główny in Kraków - hometown of prize's patron Stefan Banach. The venue, where the agreement was entered into, referred to the meetings of mathematicians organised during the interwar period at Kawiarnia Szkocka in Lwów, in which Professor Stefan Banach took active part.
Having put his signature to the document establishing the prize, President of Ericpol Jan Smela expressed his hope that the prize would help outstanding people to fulfil their creative dreams and would constitute an important element of the Polish world of science. Moreover, he wished that the prize would enable the figure of Stefan Banach, a great Polish scientist whose work and life in a fascinating way epitomised the strength and beauty of a human mind, to be remembered forever. “What is happening to beautiful minds in contemporary Poland? Does any of them deserve an epos similar to the one given to mathematician John Nash?” - Jan Smela asked. “Thanks to such initiatives, we have the chance to bring back the remarkable phenomenon of Polish mathematics of the interwar period.” – he added.
Stefan Jackowski, President of the Polish Mathematical Society, thanked Jan Smela for Ericpol's initiative and support in establishing the special prize for young mathematicians. He underlined that the International Stefan Banach Prize was an important signal for young scientists that their work was recognised also beyond mathematical circles. Turning to the mathematicians present at the ceremony, he noticed that by cooperating with Ericpol Telecom he had the opportunity to understand that mathematics was fascinating not only to mathematicians, and that it was the Society's duty to develop such interest and fascination.
During the ceremony, one of the guests, Professor Andrzej Pelczar from the Jagiellonian University, recalled an anecdote of Professor Hugo Steinhaus' greatest achievement: while walking along the Planty, he picked up a conversation between two young intellectuals Stefan Banach and Otto Nikodym about the Lebesgue integration. That accidentally overheard conversation and the interest Professor Steinhaus expressed in the young mathematicians turned out to be Stefan Banach’s pass to mathematical studies and future scientific career.
Signing the agreement was celebrated with a toast and followed by a banquet, which allowed the guests to share thoughts and opinions in less formal conditions.
The official part of the ceremony started at 1:30 pm, whereas the discussions lasted until 4 pm.
Professors and doctors of mathematical sciences from various Polish universities (such as Jagiellonian University, University of Warsaw, University of Łódź, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Technical University of Łódź and Wrocław University of Technology), members of the Polish Mathematical Society Board as well as Ericpol and media representatives took part in the event.
The idea and information about the International Stefan Banach Prize shall be spread at universities and academic centres in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. We count on the engagement and support from both lecturers as well as students. The prize shall be officially granted during the 3rd Forum of Polish Mathematicians held from 30 June to 3 July 2009 in Kraków.
The International Stefan Banach Prize is a financial award whose value in 2009 shall total 20,000 PLN. It shall be given to authors of outstanding doctoral dissertations by a jury composed of the Polish Mathematical Society members and representatives of Ericpol Telecom - the Prize founder. The first edition shall include works from Poland, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. Future editions are supposed to cover Central and Eastern European countries as well as EU states.
See International Banach Prize promotional poster.
