Wlodzimierz Marek Tulczyjew

Włodzimierz Marek Tulczyjew (18 June 1931 – 4 December 2022) was a Polish-Italian physicist and mathematician, known for his contributions to the geometric formulation of classical mechanics and field theory. He was a professor emeritus of mathematical methods of physics at the University of Camerino and a member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin.

Biography Tulczyjew was born in Włodawa, a small town in eastern Poland, in 1931. From 1933 to 1943, he lived in Ostrów Lubelski, where his father worked as an accountant. In 1943, he was deported with his family to Germany, where he worked in an armaments factory. In June 1945, he returned to Lublin. Later on he moved to Warsaw where, in 1952, he graduated with a diploma from the State Telecommunication Technical School.

From 1952 to 1956, he studied in the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Warsaw. During his studies, Tulczyjew joined a group centered around Leopold Infeld (Jerzy Plebański, Andrzej Trautman, Iwo Białynicki-Birula, Stanisław Bażański, and others). He obtained his Ph.D. in 1959 and his D.Sc. in 1965 at the University of Warsaw under the supervision of Andrzej Trautman. After Infeld's death (January 15, 1968), Tulczyjew decided to emigrate. He left Poland on September 28, 1968, and through Rome reached Canada, at the University of Calgary. Ian Anderson attributed the discovery of the variational bicomplex to both Tulczyjew and Vinogradov independently.

In 1974, Tulczyjew published a seminal paper on Hamiltonian and Lagrangian systems, providing a full geometric interpretation of the Legendre transformation. Later on, Tulczyjew formulated his innovative vision of variational principles in physics by providing a conceptual framework. The basic geometric structure associated with the Legendre transformation is now known as the Tulczyjew triple. Among his contributions to mathematical physics, Tulczyjew, in collaboration with Maria Rosa Menzio, developed an approach linking Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics via symplectic structures. Tulczyjew's contributions were recognized internationally, and in 1981, he was elected as a foreign member of the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino.

Honors and awards Tulczyjew was elected as a member of several academies and societies, such as: The Academy of Sciences of Turin (1981). The Polish Academy of Sciences (1990). The Gold Cross of Merit awarded by the President of Poland (2014).