August Wiktor Witkowski (12 October 1854 – 21 January 1913) was a Polish physicist, professor and rector of Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

Biography

August Witkowski was born in the city of Brody, which then belonged to Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, part of the Habsburg monarchy. The secondary education he acquired in Brody in 1872, and then became a student of The Engineering Faculty of Technical University in Lviv. Engineer diploma he acquired in 1877, and at the same time he gained a position of professor's assistant in Department of Geodetics Engineering. Shortly he entered Lviv University, where he studied the mathematics and physics. Owing to very good results of his education, he acquired a scholarship in Berlin. He continued there studies under Gustav Kirchhoff direction (two years period). Next he moved to Great Britain for one-year studies under William Thomson-Lord Kelvin direction. After his return (1881) to Lviv he was shortly qualified as an assistant professor (1882) and at the age of 33 he acquired a degree of associate professor (1887). Next year he was invited by the Jagiellonian University and moved to Kraków. He was appointed professor and chairman of Department of Physics of the Jagiellonian University. In 1889 he became associate member and in 1893 a fellow of Academy of Learning in Kraków. In 1892 the Jagiellonian University and in 1912 Technical University granted him a "doctor honoris causa" degree. The foundation of a new building of Physics Department in Jagiellonian University (finished in 1912) – was mainly Witkowski contribution. That building was the Collegium Witkowskiego named after him. Shortly after his death, he was proclaimed its patron (later – in 2017 – the history department). In 1920 and 1921 he was also made a patron of two high schools in Poland: August Witkowski V High School in Kraków and August Witkowski Geodetic school in Jarosław. In 1910 he became a president of the Jagiellonian University (1910–1911). He died in 1913 and was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery (in his Roman Catholic tomb, section Ł, 24 January).

Works

He worked mostly as an experimental physicist. His research interests concentrated mostly in the physical properties and laws concerning gases especially in low temperatures. In this way, he contributed also in meteorology by his research of expansion and compressibility of atmospheric air and by his investigation of thermodynamic properties of air He was interested as well in electric phenomena in atmosphere. He ran investigation of atmosphere electricity in mountain environment. His research activities were also connected with new achievements of his Polish colleagues Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski who condensed and liquefied oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and other gases in a record low temperature of −225 °C (48 K). He was interested in optical properties of liquified gases He investigated as well acoustic properties of compressed air – speed of sound in air etc. In addition to his main contribution to experimental physics, he also ran in later years of his scientific activity some interesting theoretical enquiries concerning e.g. the physical fundamentals of harmony, the principle of relativity and the electromagnetic fundamentals of light. The main Witkowski achievements as academic teacher were a three volumes of handbook of physics, which were the basis of academic education of several generations of Polish physicists. He published also mathematical and physical tables for students.

Selected works