Białobrzeski, Czesław

(b. Pošechonje, near Jaroslavl, Russia, 31 August 1878; d. Warsaw, Poland, 12 October 1953)

physics, natural philosophy;

Białobrzeski studied physics at the University of Kiev from 1896 to 1901 and received the Veniamlegendi there in 1907. From 1908 to 1910 he worked in Langevin’s laboratory at the College de France. After his return to Russia he held the chair of physics and geophysics at the University of Kiev from 1914 to 1919. Białobrzeski assumed the chair of theoretical physics at Warsaw University in 1921 and occupied it for the rest of his life. In 1935 he was appointed to the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, filling the vacancy created by the death of Marie Curie-Skłodowska. Białobrzeski served several terms as president of Polish Society of Physics, was a vice-president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1947–1951), and belonged to the Polish Academy of Science, among many others.

Białobrzeski’s work may be divided into three periods. From 1900 to 1912 he carried out experimental and theoretical research on the electrical and optical phenomena in fluid and solid dielectrics.

In 1912 Białobrzeski turned his attention to the role of radiation pressure in the equilibrium of the star interior. His paper on this (1913) drew the attention of the Polish physicists Smoluchowski and Natanson but attracted little notice abroad because the journal had only a limited circulation. Other works dealing with radiation pressure were his papers on the mechanism of light absorption (1923–1926). The second period closed with the publication of La thermodynamique des étolies (1931).

In the third period Białobrzeski concentrated on the philosophical problems of physics, mainly on the interpretation of quantum-theory foundations. He initiated and was elected chairman of the international scientific conference in Warsaw (1938) where this problem was discussed by many famous theorists. During World War II, Białobrzeski prepared a three-volume work to be entitled Podstawy poznawcze fizyki świata atomowego (“Epistemological Foundations of the Physics of the Atomic World”), in which he developed his philosophical interpretation of the quantum theory. Unfortunately, the manuscripts of the first two volumes were burned during the Warsaw Insurrection (1944). After the war Białobrzeski returned to Warsaw University and started to reconstruct the book. The work, limited to one volume, was finished in 1951 and published in 1956.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Among Białobrzeski’s works are “Sur les théories des diélectriques,” in Le radium, 9 (1912), 250; “Sur l’équilibre thermodynamique d’une sphère gazeuse libre,” in Bulletin international de l’Académie des sciences de Cracovie, ser. A (1913), 264–290; “Sur l’absorption vraie de la lumière,” in Annales de physique, 5 (1926), 215; “Szkic autobiograficzny i uwagi o twórczości naukowej” (“Autobiographical Essay and Remarks on Scientific Work”), in Nauka Polska (“Polish Science”), 6 (1927), 49–76, also in Wybór pism (see below), pp. 13–48; La thermodynamique des étoiles (Paris, 1931); “Sur l’interpretation concrète de la mécanique quantique,” in Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 41 (1934), 83–103; the introductory discourse in New Theories in Physics (Paris, 1939), also published in French (Paris, 1939), Podstawy poznaweze fizyki świata atomowego (“Epistemological Foundations of the Physics of the Atomic World”; Warsaw, 1956); and Wybór pism (“Selected Papers”; Warsaw, 1964), a selection of philosophical papers, with a bibliography.

W. Scisłowski, “Czesław Białobrzeski (1878–1953),” in Acta physica Polonica, 13 (1954), 301–308, an obituary with a bibliography, also appeared in Polish in Postepy fizyki, 5 , no. 4 (1954), 413–422.

Andrzej A. Teske