Leopold Infeld

Leopold Infeld
Leopold Infeld in 1960
Born	20 August 1898 (1898-08-20) Kraków, then Austria–Hungary, now Poland
Died	15 January 1968 (1968-01-16) (aged 69) Warsaw, Poland
Residence	Poland, UK, US, Canada
Citizenship	Austrian (1898–1918) Polish (1918–1968) Canadian (1939–50)
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Cambridge University Jagiellonian University University of Lwów Princeton University University of Toronto
Alma mater	Jagiellonian University
Doctoral students	Alfred Schild Andrzej Trautman P. R. Wallace
Known for	Born–Infeld theory Einstein–Infeld–Hoffmann equations Infeld–Hull factorization method

Born–Infeld theory
Einstein–Infeld–Hoffmann equations

Leopold Infeld (20 August 1898 – 15 January 1968) was a Polish physicist who worked mainly in Poland and Canada (1938–1950). He was a Rockefeller fellow at Cambridge University (1933–1934) and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Infeld was born in a family of Polish Jews, in Kraków which at that time was located in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to rejoin independent Poland in 1918. He studied physics at the Jagiellonian University and since 1920 in Berlin, where he engaged the help of Albert Einstein to gain admission to the University. He obtained his doctorate in 1921. In 1933 he left for England, then USA and Canada after the death of his first wife, Halina.

Infeld was interested in the theory of relativity. He was awarded a doctorate at the Jagiellonian University (1921), worked as an assistant and a docent at the University of Lwów (1930–1933) and then as a professor at the University of Toronto between 1939 and 1950. He collaborated with Albert Einstein at Princeton University (1936–1938). The two scientists co-formulated the equation describing star movements as well as co-wrote a popular science book The Evolution of Physics. In addition to its contribution to physics as a discipline, this book presents an outstanding reflection on the power of ideas and imagination in scientific inquiry.