The Copernicus Endowment Committee will join with the Department of Aerospace Engineering this Friday (April 8) to inaugurate the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Building by dedicating the 1994 Copernicus Lecture to the department’s founder, Felix Pawlowski.
Wlodzimierz Zawadzki, an authority in the field of semi-conductor physics, who also is a poet, novelist and television personality in Warsaw, will deliver the lecture, “Polish Contributions to World Science,” beginning at 8 p.m.
The program will include dedication of a plaque and bust commemorating Pawlowski. A reception in the atrium will follow the free, public lecture.
Zawadzki will focus on the discoveries of Polish physicists, chemists, astronomers and mathematicians, most notably, Copernicus, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Infeld, Banach, Ulam and Pawlowski. He will emphasize their contributions in the context of international collaboration, and analyze the situation of a small country that faces a recurring problem: the emigration of its best and brightest citizens who go abroad to realize their scientific aspirations.
While here, Zawadzki will deliver a colloquium in the Department of Physics and meet with students of Polish literature and language.
Recognized internationally, Zawadzki holds a doctorate from the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and since 1977 has held the title of Extraordinary Professor of Physics there. He is the author of 135 scientific articles and, among other honors, received the Marie Curie Prize.
Two volumes of his poetry were published in 1990 and 1991 and his most recent publication, a novel titled The Grand Inquisitor, has received critical acclaim.
