Leopold Infeld

Infeld, Leopold 

Born Aug. 20, 1898, in Kraków; died Jan. 15, 1968, in Warsaw. Polish theoretical physicist; member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1952).

Infeld graduated from the Jagellonian University in Kraków in 1921. In 1933–35 he worked at Cambridge and in 1936–38 at Princeton University with A. Einstein. In 1939 he became a professor at the University of Toronto, and after his return to Poland he was a professor at Warsaw University from 1950. His principal research includes an interpretation of the indeterminacy relation and work on the electron wave equation in the general theory of relativity (together with the Dutch mathematician B. L. van der Waerden, 1933) and on nonlinear electrodynamics (together with M. Born, 1934–35). In 1938, together with Einstein and B. Hoffmann, he derived from the equations of the general theory of relativity the equations of motion of a system of bodies in a gravitational field with a higher approximation than that of the Newtonian. He is also the author of several novellas, including a book on E. Galois (1948; Russian translation, 1958).

WORKS

“The Gravitational Equations and the Problem of Motion.” Annals of Mathematics, 1938, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 65–100. (With A. Einstein and B. Hoffmann.)
In Russian translation:
Evoliutsiia fiziki, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1956. (With A. Einstein.)

REFERENCE

Bialynicki-Birula, I. “Leopold Infeld.” Nauka polska, 1968, vol. 16, no. 3.