Born: July 2, 1926, Warsaw, Poland
Died: November 12, 2013, Krakow, Poland
Early days. His mother, Maria Rudnicka, was a PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna=Polish Socialist Party, a Polish Equivalent of British Labour Party) member, a coworker of Jozef Pisudski) . His father, Lucjan Rudnicki, a writer was a communist and a cofounder of Polish Workers Communist Party. Since the winter of 1943/1944 till February 1945 Rudnicki fought as a partisan of the communist Gwardia Ludowa. During WWII while they were living in Piotrków Trybunalski, he and his mother Maria gave shelter to a Jewish family, the Weintraubs, who thus escaped the Holocaust. In January 1996 Konrad and his mother were recognized at Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations. In September 1945 Rudnicki studied astronomy at the Warsaw University where he worked for several years after finishing the studies.
Career. Rudnicki was at the California Institute of Technology from 1965 to 1967 and at Rice University from 1988 to 1989. He discovered several supernovae. One of them, found between two galaxies, was the first such discovery to be made in the history of astronomy. He also advanced a new hypothesis on the structure of galaxy clusters. His areas of interest included extragalactic astronomy, cosmology, and the philosophy and methodology of science. In 1965 during his stay in the Palomar Observatory he discovered comet C/1966 T1, known as "Rudnicki's Comet." Since 1968 he taught at the Astronomical Observatory of Jagiellonaian Univeristy, Krakow. In addition of being an astronomer he was also a KAPLAN of the Old Catholic of Mariavites and he WYKLADAL at The ChristianTheological Academy in Warswa. He specialized in mystical theology. In the 80-es when hr worked at Castel Gandolfo, the Pope Jan Pawel II invited him to officiate a mess in Pope’s private chappel. Rudnicki was also a member of Joint Commission for Theo;ogical dialogue between the Roman-Catholic church and the Old-Catholic church of the Mariavites. He also co-authored (with Wlodzimierz Zonn a book about astronomy.
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Wikipedia in Polish
Published on 4/26/2015
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