Emil Leon Post. Współtwórca podstaw informatyki z Augustowa

Abstract

The article is devoted to Leon Post, an outstanding mathematician and logician, the co-founder of fundamentals of theoretical computer science. The scholar from Augustów, with Jewish roots, left Poland in 1904 at the age of seven and settled with his parents in the United States. The author of the article looks at Post’s biography in a broad historical context, discussing in the first part of the text the history of Jewish settlement in Augustów and in Eastern Poland. Then he goes on to the presentation of Emil Post’s biography, showing his childhood, the controversy associated with conflicting information about the arrival of Post to America, his years of study, years of scientific work and the family situation of the scientist from Augustów. In the next part of the article, the scientific achievements of the researcher are presented. The greatest achievements of Emil Post include the creation of many-valued logic, the creation of a computational model, called today the “Post’s machine”, and the theory of μ-recursive functions, thanks to which he is now considered to be one of the founders of the theory of computing machines. Post’s work had also impact on the development of formal linguistics.