Štefan Schwarz
- professor, mathematician, pedagogue
* 18.05.1914 Nové Mesto nad Váhom
† 06.12.1996 Bratislava
Education
1932 grammar school, Nové Mesto nad Váhom
1932 – 1936 The Faculty of Natural Sciences at Charles University, Prague, discipline mathematics and physics.
1946 associate professor
1947 professor
Biography
Štefan Schwarz was a world-renowned Slovak mathematician, founder of the theory of semi-groups, and long-time, extraordinarily successful professor of mathematics at SVŠT (today STU). In the years 1965-1970 he was chairman of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He was born in 1914 in Nové Mesto nad Váhom. He started to deal with mathematics when he was 14. He graduated with honours from the grammar school in his hometown in the year 1932 when he showed exceptional knowledge in mathematics.
He studied mathematics and physics at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Charles University, Prague in the years 1932-1936. Following that he gained the right to teach at secondary schools in Czechoslovakia. He received the title RNDr. in 1939 on the basis of his thesis, which he worked on under the guidance of Professor K. Peter. In the spring of 1939 he returned to Slovakia and started working at SVŠT as an associate professor and later on as a full professor from 1947. He taught there until the year 1982. Almost the whole professional career of Štefan Swarz was connected with working at the university. His lectures were focused on many different mathematical disciplines; he led basic courses for technicians, dealt with differential equations, and lectured about of the theory of the functions of complex variables and about the mathematics of physics. He also dealt with special lectures on algebra. He became popular especially because of his ability to present difficult problems in an understandable and approachable way.
He worked since 1943 at Naturalistic College of the Slovak university. Professor Schwarz organised extra education lessons for his students. He was in concentration camp since 1944 to 1945. After that he worked in Slovak scientific academy. He was a director of the Academy from 1965 to 1970. Štefan Schwarz with other important mathematicians established a magazine Mathematica Slovaca. This magazine was the most important Slovak scientific magazine with maths as a main topic. University professor studied maxima groups in a periodic half-groups and questions of a collovation of polynoms in his first scientific works. Some time later he studied the Tudory of numbers and harmonic analysis. He didn‘t understand maths as a huge group of numbers. It was a way of thinking for him. He found it spiritual training. He told: „Maths gives different ways of thinking to other sciences. These ways enable analysis of hidden facilities and connections.“ His lessons were very interesting for students. He was sure that everybody should have some specific kind of a mathematical culture. He made studies of maths more popular, he was an unusual kind of a teacher. He was the very first Slovak mathematician, respected all over the world. All his career and work show us that maths is very interesting and understandable. He was honoured for his pedagogical, scientific and organizational work. He received gold medal of UK and SAV. He died in Bratislava in 1996.
Creating
Professor Schwarz publicated many scientific works. He established the Tudory of half-groups. His theoretical results are now used cryptology and coding. He also wrote many text books for high schools. The most famous are Algebric numbers, About equations or Basics of the solving of equations.