DURNOVÁ, Helena. An American Mathematician with a Czech Name: Václav Hlavatý (1894-1969). In Colloquium "Mathematical Communication during the Cold War". 2016.
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Basic information
Original name An American Mathematician with a Czech Name: Václav Hlavatý (1894-1969)
Authors DURNOVÁ, Helena.
Edition Colloquium "Mathematical Communication during the Cold War" 2016.
Other information
Original language English
Type of outcome Requested lectures
Field of Study 60101 History
Country of publisher United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Confidentiality degree is not subject to a state or trade secret
Organization unit Faculty of Education
Keywords in English Václav Hlavatý; Cold War; mathematical communication
Changed by Changed by: Mgr. Helena Durnová, Ph.D., učo 2917. Changed: 28/2/2017 22:28.
Abstract
n the interwar period, the Czechoslovak Václav Hlavatý belonged to the wide-ranging community of differential geometers. After World War II, Hlavatý, like many other mathematicians, attempted to continue in his work in the new situation. While it is commonly assumed that mathematicians in the Soviet bloc were not directly affected by the materialist worldview, this was not the case with Václav Hlavatý. After he had emigrated to the US in 1948 (Indiana University, Bloomington), he became deeply involved in exile politics, and politics at large also affected his work: he was involved in military grants in the US; his pre-war library had to stay back in Prague and he could not have it sent over; the third volume of his Projective geometry was never published, although it was ready to be printed; and last, but not least, he was ignored by his fellow countrymen. In my talk, I will look at the background behind Hlavatý’s decisions, thus showing the complexity of the life of a mathematician working under Cold War conditions, with the emphasis on the choice of research topic.
Links
GA15-11070S, research and development projectName: Matematika, fyzika a politka: Život a dílo Václava Hlavatého (1894-1969) v mezinárodním kontextu
Investor: Czech Science Foundation, Modern mathematics inspired by relativity: life and work of Václav Hlavatý (1894-1969) in international context
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