Marian Smoluchowski (Marian Ritter von Smolan Smoluchowski, 28 may 1872 in Vorderbrühl near Vienna - 5 September 1917 in Kraków) was a Polish scientist, pioneer of statistical physics and a mountaineer.

Smoluchowski studied physics in Vienna. His teachers were Franz Exner and Joseph Stefan. Ludwig Boltzmann held a position at Munich University during the studies of Smoluchowski in Vienna and returned in 1894, when Smoluchowki served in the Austrian army. It seems that they had no direct contact, although Smoluchowski's work follows in the tradition of Boltzmann's ideas. After several years spent at other universities (Paris, Glasgow, and Berlin), he moved to Lviv in 1899, where he took a position at the University of Lviv, before he moved to Kraków.

He described Brownian motion and worked on the kinetic theory at the same time as Albert Einstein. Smoluchowski presented an equation which became the basis of the theory of stochastic processes.

See also

• Einstein-Smoluchowski formula
• Smoluchowski Coagulation Equation

Literature

• A. Einstein and M. Smoluchowski: "Brownsche Bewegung. Untersuchungen über die Theorie der Brownschen Bewegung. Abhandlung über die Brownsche Bewegung und verwandte Erscheinungen", Harri Deutsch, 1997.
• E. Seneta (2001) Marion 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.

External links

• Biography
• Photograph on Portraits of Ststisticians
• 18th Marian Smoluchowski Symposium on Statistical Physics

1872 births | 1917 deaths | Polish physicists

Marian von Smoluchowski | Marian Smoluchowski | Marian Smoluchowski