Genius loci Pomorza i Kujaw, czyli o uczonych i towarzystwach naukowych w Polsce Północnej
The genius loci of Pomerania and Cuiavia, or On scholars and scientific societies in northern Poland

Summary/Abstract: This article considers the scientific achievements of several distinguished scholars coming from northern Poland. The first one is Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Toruń, who authored the seminal work on the heliocentric system De revolutionibus and helped usher in the scientific revolution. In Gdańsk, Johannes Hevelius performed pioneering observations of the Moon and planets and gained international recognition; in 1664 he was admitted as the first foreign member of the Royal Society of London. On the initiative of Daniel Gralath, a scientific society called Societas Physicae Experimentalis was established in Gdańsk in 1742; later renamed as the Naturalist Society (Naturforschende Gesellschaft), it continued the research on electrostatic phenomena initiated in Kamień Pomorski by Ewald von Kleist, the constructor of the first capacitor. The article devotes considerable attention to two scientific societies established in the nineteenth century in Toruń: the Copernicus Society of Art and Science (Coppernicus Verein für Wissenschaft und Kunst zu Thorn) and the Toruń Scientific Society (Towarzystwo Naukowe w Toruniu). The study also notes that Jan Śniadecki (astronomer and mathematician) and his brother Jędrzej Śniadecki, the creator of Polish chemical terminology, were born in Żnin in the Pałuki region. The town of Kcynia in the same region, in turn, is the birthplace of Jan Czochralski, the inventor of the method of crystal growth that changed the world electronics. The author notes some connections of Czochralski with the Nobel Laureate Walther Nernst, born in Wąbrzeźno, who developed the third law of thermodynamics. The profiles of distinguished scholars born in northern Poland presented in this article indicate the genius loci of this part of the country, a phenomenon which manifests itself also in the form of scientific societies active there.

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