Sierpinski

Waclaw Sierpinski

Born: 20 Aug 1882 in Warsaw, Poland
Died: 14 May 1969 in Warsaw, Poland

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Sierpinski worked first in Warsaw and then in Cracow. From 1908 to 1914 he taught at the University of Lvov then, from 1915 to 1918 at the University of Moscow. He then returned to the University of Warsaw where he spent the rest of his life.

Sierpinski's most important work is in the area of set theory, point set topology and number theory. In set theory he made important contributions to the axiom of choice and to the continuum hypothesis.

He studied the Sierpinski curve which describes a closed path which contains every interior point of a square. The length of the curve is infinity, while the area enclosed by it is 5/12 that of the square.

Sierpinski was the author of 724 papers and 50 books.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. M Fryde, Waclaw Sierpinski - Mathematician, Scripta Mathematica 27 (1964), 105-111.
  3. K Kuratowski, Waclaw Sierpinski (1882-1969), Acta Arithmetica 21 (1972), 1-5. 
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