Professor Ludwik Dobrzyński 1941–2022

Professor Ludwik Dobrzyński – a physicist, radiation scientist and science educator, a true gentleman and a good friend to many – lost his long and brave battle with cancer and passed away in Warsaw on 11 January 2022, at the age of 81 years.

Ludwik was born in exile in the village Asino in Siberia (former USSR), where his parents, like many Polish families, were deported after the last partition of Poland in 1939. As the Second World War ended, he returned with his family to Warsaw where he completed his secondary education and entered university. Ludwik received his B.Sc. (1963) and M.Sc. (1964) degrees in physics – solid state and nuclear – from the University of Warsaw, and next, his Ph.D. (1968) and in 1975 his habilitation (D.Sc.) degrees in nuclear physics, both from the Institute of Nuclear Research (IBJ) in Świerk/Warsaw – which is now the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ). In 1991 Ludwik Dobrzyński received his title of Professor of Physics from the President of Poland, according to the customary procedure for this highest academic rank in Poland.

Ludwik took his first research position at the Świerk Institute of Nuclear Research (IBJ) in 1963. Over the years 1981 and 1982 he was Deputy Director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Methods in Solid State Physics of the IBJ. Ludwik took an active part in the turbulent years of ‘Solidarity’ in Poland. As chief editor of the underground Solidarity Bulletin of the IBJ (1980–1981), he paid a high price – he was expelled from IBJ in 1982. Later, in 1983, he moved to the University of Bialystok in northern Poland where he set up and led the Laboratory of Solid State Physics until his retirement in 2011. Between 2011 and 2013 he was also employed by the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. As a visiting professor at several laboratories abroad, including Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA), Centro di Studi Nucleari della Casaccia (Italy), or Pierre and Marie Curie University (France), Ludwik Dobrzyński became well known internationally and gained several friends at these institutions.

In 1997 Ludwik was finally able to return to Świerk where he set up the Department of Training and Consulting, now – the Department of Education and Training at NCBJ. He headed this department up until 2018, actively working there right until the end of his life. Very likely, had it not been for Prof. Dobrzyński’s educational efforts, the public in Poland would have perceived nuclear power differently – today, well over 60% of respondents grant approval to the Polish nuclear energy program. His courses of nuclear energy, prepared and delivered at the NCBJ by Ludwik and his associates, addressed to schoolchildren and young people (NCBJ 2022), could serve as exemplary scholarship in this area all over the world.

Since 2001 Ludwik Dobrzyński had served as member of the Polish delegation to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) – for the last several years as Alternate to the Representative of Poland. Within this Committee, Ludwik was one of the most active and highly respected members – a steadfast and credible advocate of the radiation-induced adaptive and hormetic responses of the human organism after low doses of ionizing radiation – in opposition to the current LNT paradigm. Ludwik was also an active and highly respected member of the international SARI (Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information) web-based discussion group of experts. He shared and coauthored some of his research publications with SARI members, also inviting them to meetings in Poland.

Professor Dobrzyński authored and coauthored about 300 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, and also authored an academic textbook ‘Neutrons and Solid-State Physics’ (1994). Within the scope of his research interests were neutron scattering, magnetism, Mossbauer and Compton spectrometry, Bayesian and Maximum Entropy statistical methods, but also effects of low doses of ionizing radiation on humans and other living organisms.

Ludwik Dobrzyński was a charming, warmhearted person with a great sense of humor – an excellent scientist, and a man of principles – in short, a great man. For his underground activity in the Polish anti-communist ‘Solidarity’ movement, he was fired from his position at the IBJ in Świerk in December 1982. During most of 1983 (before joining the academic staff at the University of Bialystok) he worked as a ballroom dancing instructor – accepting, like many other dissidents, any job to earn a living.

We will all remember and miss Professor Ludwik Dobrzyński – including many who had never met him in person. We extend our sympathy to his wife Maria, to their daughters Luisa and Dorota and to his family.