Mathematician:Mathematicians/Sorted By Nation/Czechia

For more comprehensive information on the lives and works of mathematicians through the ages, see the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, created by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson.

The army of those who have made at least one definite contribution to mathematics as we know it soon becomes a mob as we look back over history; 6,000 or 8,000 names press forward for some word from us to preserve them from oblivion, and once the bolder leaders have been recognised it becomes largely a matter of arbitrary, illogical legislation to judge who of the clamouring multitude shall be permitted to survive and who be condemned to be forgotten.

-- Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics, 1937, Victor Gollancz, London

Bohemia

Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano $($$\text {1781}$ – $\text {1848}$$)$

Bohemian priest who was also a mathematician, logician, theologian and philosopher.

A major precursor of the wave of development of analysis in the late $19$th century.

Proved the Bolzano-Weierstrass Theorem, independently of (and earlier than) Karl Weierstrass.

Gave the first analytical proof of the Intermediate Value Theorem (which is also known as Bolzano's Theorem).
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Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach $($$\text {1838}$ – $\text {1916}$$)$

Native of the Austrian empire, Ernst Mach was a physicist and philosopher.

Noted for his study of shock waves.

Major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism.

Through his criticism of Isaac Newton, a forerunner of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
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Mathias Lerch $($$\text {1860}$ – $\text {1922}$$)$

Czech mathematician best known for his work on mathematical analysis and number theory.
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Eduard Čech $($$\text {1893}$ – $\text {1960}$$)$

Czech mathematician whose research interests included projective differential geometry and topology.

Best known for the Stone-Čech Compactification Theory, with Marshall Harvey Stone.
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Vojtěch Jarník $($$\text {1897}$ – $\text {1970}$$)$

Czech mathematician who worked mainly in number theory and analysis.

Also produced some results in lattice theory and graph theory.
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Josef Novák $($$\text {1905}$ – $\text {1999}$$)$

Czech mathematician known for his work in topology.
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Czechoslovakia

Petr Beckmann $($$\text {1924}$ – $\text {1993}$$)$

Czech-born professor of electrical engineering who became a well-known advocate of libertarianism and nuclear power.

Later in his life he disputed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and other accepted theories in modern physics.
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Thomas J. Jech $($$\text {b. 1944}$$)$

Czech-born mathematician who specializes in set theory.
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