History
In the first years after World War II, the University of Wroclaw and the Wroclaw University of Technology comprised one university and thus had one Mathematics Department. Among professors who gave lectures to math students were Edward Marczewski, Hugo Steinhaus and Wladyslaw Slebodzinski - the creators of the Wroclaw mathematical community.
A separate Mathematics Department at the Wroclaw University of Technology was established in 1951. A significant role in its further development played its first Chairman - Wladyslaw Slebodzinski - a great man and an outstanding mathematician, a specialist in differential geometry. In the beginning, apart from differential geometry, also such research areas as the theory of differential equations as well as numerical methods were being developed.
In 1966, four small Mathematics Departments, placed at different Faculties of the Wroclaw University of Technology, were established. Simultaneously, a new research area - probability and mathematical statistics, was introduced. In 1968, the Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics was founded, and finally, in 1974, the Institute of Mathematics as an independent institute, which has been in operation until now.
Three professors have played the main role in its development: Stanislaw Gladysz - a specialist in ergodic theory and stochastic processes, a long-term Chairman of the Institute and a co-founder of the Faculty of the Fundamental Problems of Technology; Czeslaw Ryll-Nardzewski - a world-famous mathematician, an oustanding specialist in measure theory, functional analysis and probability theory, Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Stanislaw Trybula - a specialist in mathematical statistics, game theory and control theory. To a large extent, thanks to their research activities, the Institute of Mathematics has enjoyed dynamic development and its scientific importance has increased significantly over the years. From among their students and co-workers come the majority of current full and associate professors who are on the faculty of the Institute.
In the 80's and 90's, probability and mathematical statistics were the dominating research areas. Nevertheless, in the 90's began the process of greater diversification of research carried out at the Institute. This process is still continuing and almost every year research at the Institute is enriched by new areas of mathematics, and recently also by computer science.