Mathematicians at the Scottish Café

Between 1935 and 1941, “The Scottish Book” – a collection of almost 200 mathematical problems – was compiled by a group of Polish mathematicians who gathered at the Scottish Cafe in the Polish (earlier Austro-Hungarian/now Ukrainian) city of Lwow (Lemberg/Lviv) (Note: In this paper, I am using the names Lemberg, Lwow and Lviv, according to whether at the time the city was a part of Austria-Hungary, Poland or either the Soviet Union or Ukraine. Some essential history: (1) When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, the Germans crossed the whole of the country and reached as far as Lwow in the East; (2) Then they stopped and handed over the eastern section, including Lwow, to their Soviet allies (a result of the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact), and retreated to the present-day Polish border; (3) Between October 1939 and May 1941, Lwow was under Soviet control. (4) In June 1941, with Germany and the Soviet Union allies no longer, the Germans ousted the Soviets from Lwow and stayed until the end of the War. (5) Lwow then became a city in the Ukrainian SSR; and (6) it is now is a part of independent Ukraine.). The Scottish Cafe had nothing to do with Scotland. It was owned by the author’s grandfather, Tomasz Zielinski. The Scottish Book and its problems survived World War II (a successor tome is being compiled and kept at the University of Wroclaw, Poland). Many members of this Lwow School of Mathematics went on to have illustrious careers and make indelible contributions to their chosen subject. This paper describes the evidence on the Scottish Book and the history of the various participants in this small but lasting component of the edifice of modern mathematics, which has been termed a “classic in mathematical thought”.