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Bohdan Paczyński

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Bohdan Paczyński
Born(1940-02-08)8 February 1940
Vilnius, Lithuania
Died19 April 2007(2007-04-19) (aged 67)
Princeton, New Jersey, United States
NationalityPolish
Alma materUniversity of Warsaw
Known forPaczyński-Wiita potential
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
Institutions
Doctoral advisor

Bohdan Paczyński or Bohdan Paczynski (8 February 1940 – 19 April 2007) was a Polish astronomer notable for his theories and work in the fields of stellar evolution, accretion discs, and gamma ray bursts. He is the recipient of the Eddington Medal (1987), the Henry Draper Medal (1997), the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1999), and the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007).

Life and career

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Paczyński was born on 8 February 1940 in Vilnius, Lithuania,[1] to a lawyer and a teacher of Polish literature. In 1945 his family chose to leave for Poland and settled in Kraków, and then in 1949 in Warsaw. At the age of 18, Paczyński published his first scientific article in Acta Astronomica. Between 1959 and 1962 he studied astronomy at the University of Warsaw. Two years later he received a doctorate under the tutelage of Stefan Piotrowski and Włodzimierz Zonn.

In 1962 Paczyński became a member of the Centre of Astronomy of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he continued to work for nearly 20 years. In 1974 he received habilitation and in 1979 became a professor. Thanks to his works on theoretical astronomy, at the age of 36 he became the youngest member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.[2]

In 1981 Paczyński visited the United States, where he gave a series of lectures at Caltech to former interns at his Warsaw-based institute. After the introduction of the Martial Law in Poland he decided to stay abroad.[3] He was the Lyman Spitzer Jr. Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University.[4]

Paczyński was the initiator of time-domain sky surveys: Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE, led by Andrzej Udalski of Warsaw University Observatory)[5] and All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS, created together with Grzegorz Pojmański).[6]

His new methods of discovering cosmic objects and measuring their mass by using gravitational lenses gained him international recognition, and he is acknowledged for coining the term microlensing. He was also an early proponent of the idea that gamma-ray bursts are at cosmological distances.

In 1997, Paczyński hypothesized that hypernovae were supernovae from rapidly spinning stars.[7]

His research concentrated on stellar evolution, gravitational lensing and gravitational microlensing, variable stars, gamma-ray bursts, and galactic structure.[8]

In 1999, he became the first astronomer to receive all three major awards of the Royal Astronomical Society,[9] by winning the Gold Medal, having won the Eddington Medal in 1987 and the George Darwin Lectureship in 1995.[10]

He was honoured with the title of doctor honoris causa by Wrocław University in Poland (on June 29, 2005) and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in Poland (on September 22, 2006).

In January 2006 he was awarded Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society, "for his highly original contributions to a wide variety of fields including advanced stellar evolution, the nature of gamma ray bursts, accretion in binary systems, gravitational lensing, and cosmology. His research has been distinguished by its creativity and breadth, as well as the stimulus it has provided to highly productive observational investigations".

He published over 200 scientific papers, which have been cited over 30,000 times by 2022, making him one of the most cited Polish scientists.[11]

He died of brain cancer on April 19, 2007, in Princeton, New Jersey.[12]

Honors

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Awards

Named after him

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Draine, Bruce T.; Ostriker, Jeremiah P. (27 June 2007). "Bohdan Paczyński (1940–2007)". Nature. 447 (7148): 1064. doi:10.1038/4471064a. PMID 17597752. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  2. ^ "Bohdan Paczyński" (in Polish). Gazeta Wyborcza. 10 October 2007. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012.
  3. ^ Thomas H. Maugh II (26 April 2007). "Bohdan Paczynski, 67; a key figure in the search for dark matter and planets". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  4. ^ Liz Fuller-Wright (1 November 2017). "Neutron star merger confirms decades of predictions by Princeton researchers". princeton.edu. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  5. ^ Steven Schultz. "Paczynski 'OGLEs' the sky for answers to cosmic questions". pr.princeton.edu. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  6. ^ "The All Sky Automated Survey and Bohdan Paczyński's idea of astronomy with small telescopes". researchgate.net. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  7. ^ Paczynski (1997). GRBs as Hypernovae. Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium. arXiv:astro-ph/9712123. Bibcode:1997astro.ph.12123P.
  8. ^ Bruce T. Draine. "Bohdan Paczyński (1940–2007)" (PDF). nasonline.org. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  9. ^ Trimble, Virginia (20 July 2007). "Professor Bohdan Paczynski". Obituary. The Independent on Sunday. Retrieved 10 August 2008.[dead link‍]
  10. ^ Spergel, David (7 July 2020). "Bohdan Paczynski (1940–2007)". Bulletin of the AAS. 39 (4). Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 14 August 2021.
  11. ^ "Bohdan Paczyński". ui.adsabs.harvard.edu. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  12. ^ Pearce, Jeremy (26 April 2007). "Bohdan Paczynski, Pioneering Astrophysicist, Dies at 67". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 5 June 2015.
  13. ^ "PROF. DR HAB. BOHDAN PACZYŃSKI – LAUREAT NAGRODY FNP 1996". fnp.org.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  14. ^ "Henry Draper Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013.
  15. ^ "Winners of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society". Royal Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 25 May 2011.
  16. ^ Dziembowski, W. (2007). "Bohdan Paczyński". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 119 (858): 836–841. doi:10.1086/521711. JSTOR 10.1086/521711.
  17. ^ "Past Winners of the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal". Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011.
  18. ^ "DOKTORZY HONORIS CAUSA". umk.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  19. ^ "Grants, Prizes and Awards". American Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 22 December 2010.
  20. ^ "Prezydent RP odznaczył pośmiertnie Bohdana Krzysztofa Paczyńskiego" [The President of the Republic of Poland posthumously awarded Bohdan Krzysztof Paczyński] (in Polish). 9 July 2007. Archived from the original on 7 March 2017.
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