Some months ago, I wrote a post about the Scottish Café in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), where, in the 1930s, Polish mathematicians from the Lwów School of Mathematics would gather to pose, discuss and solve problems.
At first, the mathematicians would write directly on the tables’ marble tops… but then Stefan Banach’s wife bought them a notebook for them to write on. That book was named the Scottish Book, and it has acquired a somewhat quasi-legendary status.
The original manuscripts were written in Polish, but (fortunately for all of us who can’t read Polish) in the 1950s Stanisław Ulam translated the book to English. Here is the English version of the Scottish Book (PDF – 2.97 MB).
Here is an excerpt of the preface, written by Ulam in 1958:
The enclosed collection of mathematical problems has its origin in a notebook which was started in Lwów, in Poland in 1935. If I remember correctly, it was S Banach who suggested keeping track of some of the problems occupying the group of mathematicians there.
The mathematical life was very intense in Lwów. Some of us met practically every day, informally in small groups, at all times of the day to discuss problems of common interest, communicating to each other the latest work and results. Apart from the more official meetings of the local sections of the Mathematical Society (which took place Saturday evenings, almost every week!), there were frequent informal discussions mostly held in one of the coffee houses located near the University building – one of them a coffee house named “Roma” and the other “The Scottish Coffee House”. This explains the name of the collection.
A large notebook was purchased by Banach and deposited with the headwaiter of the Scottish Coffee House, who, upon demand, would bring it out of some secure hiding place, leave it at the table, and after the guests departed, return it to its secret location.
Those who can read Polish can read the original manuscripts here (PDF – 6.3 MB) and a typed version here (PDF – 2.5 MB). The last problem in the book is one proposed by Hugo Steinhaus on May 31, 1941. Lwów was occupied by the Nazis in Summer 1941 and the inscriptions ceased.
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Tags: Hugo Steinhaus, Lviv, Lwów, Mathematicians, Mathematics, Poland, Scottish Book, Scottish Café, Stanislaw Ulam, Stefan Banach, Ukraine, Vintage Mathematics
