He was born in 1872 into an upper-class family in Vorder-Brühl, near Vienna, to father Wilhelm and mother Teofila (née Szczepanowska).[2] He attended the prestigious Collegium Theresianum and subsequently studied physics at the University of Vienna (1890-95).[3] In 1895, he obtained his doctorate based on his dissertation entitled Acoustical Studies of Elasticity of Soft Materials.[4] His teachers included Franz S. Exner and Josef Stefan. Ludwig Boltzmann held a position at Munich University during Smoluchowski's studies in Vienna, and Boltzmann returned to Vienna in 1894 when Smoluchowski was serving in the Austrian army. They apparently had no direct contact, although Smoluchowski's work follows in the tradition of Boltzmann's ideas.
In 1913 Smoluchowski moved to Kraków to take over a chair in the Experimental Physics Department, succeeding August Witkowski, who had long envisioned Smoluchowski as his successor.[6] When World War I began the following year, the work conditions became unusually difficult, as the spacious and modern Physics Department building, built by Witkowski a short time before, was turned into a military hospital. The possibility of working in that building had been one of the reasons Smoluchowski had decided to move to Kraków. Smoluchowski was now forced to work in the apartment of the late Professor Karol Olszewski. During his lectures in experimental physics, use of even the simplest demonstration equipment was virtually impossible.
Smoluchowski was a member of the Copernicus Society of Natural Scientists and the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Smoluchowski died in Kraków in 1917, as a result of a dysentery epidemic. Professor Władysław Natanson wrote in an obituary of Smoluchowski: "With great pleasure I recall the charm of his life, his noble cordiality, combined with exquisite kindness. I wish I could render the curious appeal of his personality, recall how temperate he was, how modest and elegantly diffident, yet always full of a pure, spontaneous joy."[citation needed]
Work
Smoluchowski conducted fundamental research on the kinetic theory of matter. In 1904 he discovered density fluctuations in the gas phase, and in 1908 he was the first physicist to ascribe the phenomenon of critical opalescence to large density fluctuations. His investigations explained the blue color of the sky as a consequence of light scattering in the atmosphere.
In 1906, shortly after Albert Einstein, he independently explained Brownian motion.[7]
Smoluchowski presented an equation, known as the Smoluchowski equation, which became a basis for the theory of stochastic processes. It describes the time evolution of the probability density function for a particle undergoing Brownian motion under the influence of external forces and diffusion. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar described it as "one of the most outstanding achievements in molecular physics".[8]
In 1916, he proposed the equation for diffusion in an external potential field. This equation bears his name.[9]
In 1965, the Polish Physical Society established the Marian Smoluchowski Medal, an international award for significant achievements in the field of physics in recognition of Smoluchowski's contributions to science.[15]
In 2017, the Senate of Poland passed a special resolution on the 100th anniversary of Smoluchowski's death establishing 2017 as the "Year of Marian Smoluchowski".[19]
In 2022, Jan Grzanka published a book Zapomniany geniusz fizyki: rzecz o Marianie Smoluchowskim (The Forgotten Physics Genius: Marian Smoluchowski) devoted to the life and scientific work of Smoluchowski.[21]
^O'Connor, J J; Robertson, E F (November 2006). "Marian Smoluchowski". School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
A. Teske, Marian Smoluchowski, Leben und Werk. Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 1977.
A. Einstein and M. von Smoluchowski: "Untersuchungen über die Theorie der Brownschen Bewegung. Abhandlung über die Brownsche Bewegung und verwandte Erscheinungen", Harri Deutsch, 1997. (Ostwalds Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften Band 199). ISBN3-8171-3207-7.
S. Chandrasekhar, M. Kac, R. Smoluchowski, "Marian Smoluchowski - his life and scientific work", ed. by R.S. Ingarden, PWN, Warszawa 1999.
E. Seneta (2001) Marian Smoluchowski, Statisticians of the Centuries (ed. C. C. Heyde and E. Seneta) pp. 299–302. New York: Springer.
S. Ulam (1957) Marian Smoluchowski and the Theory of Probabilities in Physics, American Journal of Physics, 25, 475-481 (ISSN 0002-9505).
Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord, chapter 5, section 5e. Einstein and Smoluchowski; Critical Opalescence, (pp. 100–103), Oxford University Press, (1982) 2005, ISBN0-19-280672-6.
.jpg)
