Stefan Węgrzyn
Prof. Stefan Węgrzyn was born in Cracow on 20 May 1925. He completed primary and middle school in Borysław, where he also attended high school with a mathematics and physics profile. He passed his matriculation examination in 1943 within the education performed in the secret teaching mode. In 1944, he left for Lviv, where he completed his first year of studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. In 1945, he left for Poland, where he continued his studies at the Silesian University of Technology, first in Cracow, then in Gliwice, and where, on 25 February 1949, Stefan Węgrzyn passed his diploma exam and was awarded the title of Master of Science in Electrical Engineering.
As early as the third year of his studies, i.e., in 1946, he was engaged as a junior assistant in the Department of Fundamentals of Electrotechnics, which was headed by the renowned scientist Professor Stanisław Fryze. Stefan Węgrzyn focused his scientific interests on the analysis of transients in electric circuits. The first academic script that he published in 1949 was devoted to the application of operator calculus in that analysis. It was pioneering research in Polish electrical engineering, which opened a new chapter in the field of transient states.
In 1951, two years after graduation, Stefan Węgrzyn submitted his doctoral thesis entitled “Niektóre zagadnienia stanów nieustalonych we wzmacniaczach wielostopniowych” (Some problems of transient states in multipage amplifiers), which he defended with distinction. This was the ninth doctoral thesis conducted and completed at the Silesian University of Technology.
The academic script and lectures on this topic became the basis for the book "Rachunek operatorowy” (Operator Calculus). This book became the basic textbook of operator calculus for several years for students of electrical and electronic faculties. The next book entitled “Przebiegi Nieustalone w Liniach i Układach Łańcuchowych“ (Undetermined Transitions in Lines and Chains) was published in 1958. Soon translations of both books were published abroad, in Germany, France, and Czechoslovakia.
In 1960, dr Stefan Wegrzyn defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Toulouse in France from the same field of knowledge, i.e., the analysis of transients in systems with distributed parameters.
The second field of science to which Stefan Węgrzyn's works have made a lasting contribution is automatic control. In this field, he introduced the notions of Banach’s distance measure and metric spaces to the analysis of system stability, and later he also used these notions in the problems of object identification. He published many papers about this topic in the Bulletins of the Polish and French Academy of Sciences.
His scientific work was accompanied by organizational activities. In 1953, he organized the Section of Automatic Control and later the Department of the Theory of Control in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. In 1964, they contributed to establishing a separate Faculty of Automatic Control at the Silesian University of Technology, the first such faculty in Poland. From 1960 Stefan Węgrzyn lectured on automatic control in Poland, France (at the University of Lille), the former Soviet Union (at the Electricity Institute in Novosibirsk), and in Canada (at the Universities of Laval and Sherbrooke).
In 1963, he wrote a book entitled "Podstawy Automatyki” (Fundamentals of Automatic Control), published by PWN, which was then republished in six editions (the last one in 1980). The book was translated into French and published in Paris in 1965.
By the resolution of the State Council of November 25, 1961, docent Stefan Węgrzyn was appointed to the position of associate Professor. In 1964, he was elected, at the age of 39, a correspondent member of the Polish Academy of Science (PAN) - at that time, the youngest member of PAN. In 1973, he was elected a full member of the PAN. For many years, he was also a member of the Presidium of PAN and the chairman of the Committee on Informatics of PAN.
Apart from the Silesian University of Technology, from 1955, prof. Węgrzyn worked at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research at PAN (IPPT) in Warsaw, and, from 1962, he was appointed Deputy Head for Scientific Affairs at the Institute of Automatic Control of PAN in Warsaw. In 1968, Professor led to establishing the PAN’s Department of Complex Control Systems in Gliwice and becoming its Head. In 1989, this Department was transformed into the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics (IITiS), of which Professor Węgrzyn was the Head until 2002 and its Head for Scientific Affairs from 2003 to 2006. He was the Head of the Department of Unconventional Problems of Informatics at IITiS for the rest of his life.
When directing the work on developing industrial complex automation, Prof. Węgrzyn focused particularly on using computer control systems. The result of the so-called nodal problems carried out by Prof. Węgrzyn was, among others, the launch of the first computerized technological processes in Silesian industrial plants. The effect of these interests was also the establishment of the Institute of Complex Control Systems at the Silesian University of Technology, which he headed.
The work on the use of computers for control purposes focused Professor's attention on computer science. Informatics was the third field of science to which Stefan Węgrzyn made a significant scientific contribution. He developed the theoretical foundations of computer science, particularly in the area of the synthesis of a computer control system. At the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Sciences of the Silesian University of Technology, Prof. Węgrzyn set up a course of study entitled Computer Science and the Institute of Real-Time Informatics, later renamed the Institute of Computer Science. In addition to many publications, he also published another book entitled "Podstawy Informatyki" (Computer Science Basics), an important textbook for students of computer science, and later a script "Wykłady z Podstaw Informatyki Prof. S. Węgrzyna" (Prof. S. Węgrzyn’s Lectures on the Computer Science Basics).
Another challenge that Professor Węgrzyn took up was the computer basis of evolutionary systems and the attempt to answer the question of how the methods of computer science can be used to extend the boundaries of our cognition and to decipher the mysteries of information processing in living organisms. Thus, Professor creatively joined the creation of an interdisciplinary field, including computer science, genetic engineering, molecular biology, medicine, nanotechnology, and nanomaterials. He wrote a number of papers and a book, "Developmental Systems at the Crossroads of System Theory, Computer Science, and Genetic Engineering" (Springer Verlag, New York). Professor's recent papers and books include "Kwantowe systemy informatyki” (Quantum Systems of Computer Science) and "Molekularne systemy informatyki” (Molecular Systems of Computer Science).
Professor Węgrzyn's activity in the field of organization of science also includes his involvement in the establishment of the Gliwice Branch of the Polish Society of Theoretical and Applied Electrical Engineering. He was one of the founding members of this Branch, and in the years 1965-1967, he was its chairman. In 1995, Professor S. Węgrzyn was elected an active member of the Polish Academy of Learning (also the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, PAU).
In recognition of his academic achievements, Professor Stefan Węgrzyn was conferred the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Lille in France (1973), the University of Sherbrooke in Canada (1977), the AGH University in Kraków, the Silesian University of Technology and the Rzeszów University of Technology. In recognition of his contribution to the culture and science of France, the French authorities awarded him the title of Chevalier in 1977 and Officer of Academic Palms in 1983. Professor Węgrzyn was awarded State Prizes, Minister's Awards, and the Cross of the Home Army, he was also a Knight of the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Prof. Stefan Węgrzyn has educated several dozen graduate students in electrical, electronic, automatic, and computer engineering. He promoted over 60 doctors of technical sciences. Some of his students became members of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Until almost his last days, he actively participated in the life of the University, Faculty, and Institute of Computer Science.
His students were always impressed by his lectures and scientific papers. The search for the simplest form of description, as well as physical interpretation of the phenomena, methods, or models under study, were exceptional in his lectures. This simplicity was characteristic in all his work, from his doctoral thesis (on the method of two opposite steady states) to his recent work on molecular information systems.
Professor Węgrzyn was an outstanding personality and an exceptional individual. Thanks to his exceptional qualities of mind, he used to surprise his listeners or participants in discussions with the insight and accuracy of his remarks or opinions and the originality of solutions proposed in discussions.
Professor Stefan Węgrzyn passed away on 28th July 2011. On 3rd August 2011, the Silesian University of Technology said goodbye to its employee, the long-standing Head of the Institute of Computer Science, and a scientist who made a significant contribution to the development of electrical engineering, automatic control, and computer science. He will remain in our memory as an exceptional personality, an outstanding scientist, and a great organizer in the field of science.
