Václav Hlavatý (27 January 1894-11 January 1969) was a noted Czech-American mathematician, who wrote on the theory of relativity and corresponded extensively with Albert Einstein on the subject.^[1] In particular, Hlavatý solved some very difficult equations relating to Einstein's Unified field theory, which was featured in the news media as one of the great scientific achievements of 1953.^[2] Einstein himself was reported to have said that if anyone could solve the equations it would be Professor Hlavatý, which proved to be the case.^[3]

He was born in Louny (now in the Czech Republic) and died in Bloomington, Indiana. He first worked at the Charles University in Prague^[4] and during World War II participated in the Prague uprising^[3], but his academic career was mainly at Indiana University, which he joined in 1948, and where he became Professor, later Emeritus, of Mathematics. A special book of mathematical essays was published in his honour.^[5]

Before emigrating to the United States, he was concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic. Afterwards, he was a member of the Czech Government in Exile.

[edit] Some publications

• "The Elementary Basic Principles of the Unified Theory of Relativity," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 38.3 (1952): 243-247.
• "The Einstein Connection of the Unified Theory of Relativity," PNAS 38.5 (1952): 415-419.
• "The Schrödinger Final Affine Field Laws," PNAS 38.12 (1952): 1052-1058.
• "The Spinor Connection in the Unified Einstein Theory of Relativity," PNAS 39.6 (1953): 501-506. full text (pdf)
• "Connections Between Einstein's Two Unified Theories of Relativity," PNAS 39.6 (1953): 507-510. full text (pdf)
• Geometry of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory, Groningen: Noordhoff, 1957.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Václav Hlavatý at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Václav Hlavatý biography (in Czech)
• Václav Hlavatý biography (in Czech) includes photograph

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