Václav Hlavatý

Who was Václav Hlavatý?

Václav Hlavatý was a noted Czech-American mathematician, who wrote on the theory of relativity and corresponded extensively with Albert Einstein on the subject. 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. 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.

He was born in Louny, Bohemia and died in Bloomington, Indiana. He obtained his PhD in 1921 at the Charles University in Prague and during World War II participated in the Prague uprising, 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.

In 1931 he married Olga Neumannova, and they had a daughter, Olga.