Helena Rasiowa
Polish mathematician, professor at the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences. She worked in the foundations of mathematics and algebraic logic, including Boolean algebra, set theory, theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
Her lectures were known all over the world. She had been visiting professor at 14 universities, ranging from Bahia Blanca in Argentina to Moscow in the Soviet Union, passing through Campinas in Brasil, UNAM in Mexico, Rome in Italy and Oxford University in England. In the USA she was hosted by universities such as Princeton, University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Moreover, she gave invited lectures at 46 universities and research establishments abroad, in some of them more than once. – quote from the biography of Helena Rasiowa (authors: W. Bartol, E. Orłowska, A. Skowron).
In 1938, she began studies at the Faculty of Mechanical and Natural Sciences of the University of Warsaw. She passed her first year with flying colors. Helena’s studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. The capital’s university was closed, and Helena and her parents tried to escape to Romania, but eventually found refuge in Lviv. Things quickly ceased to be peaceful there as well, because after the entry of Soviet troops, the persecution of Poles began. In 1940, the Rasi family decided to return to Warsaw.
At that time, an excellent group of mathematicians worked at the University of Warsaw, including Borsuk, Łukasiewicz, Mazurkiewicz, Sierpiński, Mostowski and many others. They organized an underground university where Helena Rasiowa continued her studies and worked on her master’s thesis under the supervision of Łukasiewicz until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. In 1944, the Warsaw Uprising failed and, as a consequence, the city was almost completely destroyed, not only by military operations, but also by the systematic destruction that followed the suppression of the uprising. Rasiowa’s diploma thesis burned down along with her entire house. She and her mother survived by hiding in a basement covered with the ruins of a devastated building.
After the war, she briefly worked as a mathematics teacher, but at Mostowski’s encouragement she quickly returned to her studies. She wrote a second master’s thesis, this time under the supervision of Andrzej Mostowski, which she defended in 1945. The following year she started working as an assistant at the University of Warsaw. In 1950, she defended her doctoral dissertation, also written under the supervision of Andrzej Mostowski. The work concerned algebraic methods in logic. In 1956, she obtained her second scientific degree (equivalent of habilitated doctor). Rasiowa received the title of professor in 1957, and in 1967 the title of full professor. She founded the Mathematical Section in 1964 and the Mathematical Logic Section in 1970.
Helena Rasiowa’s main research focused on algebraic logic and mathematical assumptions of computer science. In algebraic logic, she continued to work with mathematicians such as Post, Stone, Tarski and Łukasiewicz. They aimed to find a precise description of the mathematical structures shaping the logical system.
It was Helena Rasiowa’s work on algebraic logic that made her a co-author of the foundations of theoretical computer science. Her contribution to theoretical computer science comes from the belief that there are deep relationships between algebra and logic, on the one hand, and the fundamental problems of computer science assumptions, on the other. Among these problems, Rasiowa clearly distinguished the typical methods of computer science from its applications. This belief was supported by the results of much important and unconventional work on logic, in particular the application of various generalizations of algebra assumptions to programming logic and approximation logic. In 1984, Rasiowa presented an important concept of an application where the basic information was incomplete. This led to the understanding of approximations and the logic of approximations, which are now central areas of artificial intelligence research.
Helena Rasiowa wrote over a hundred scientific papers, books and monographs. She also supervised the doctoral theses of over twenty students. She helped to create a journal entitled “Fundamenta Informaticae”, of which she was the editor-in-chief from its foundation in 1977 until her death. Additionally, she was associated with the “Studia Logica” magazine from 1974. From 1955-57, Rasiowa was the secretary of the Polish Association of Mathematicians, and from 1958-59 she was its vice-president. She was active in the Committee of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and supported various committees of the Polish Ministry of Science.
She was one of the main figures of the mathematics scene in Poland. She remained active until her death in 1994, leaving eight completed chapters of a new monograph, “Algebraic Analysis of the Non-Classical Logical Order”, before leaving for hospital in the final stages of her illness.
