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Kraków is hosting a three-day academic forum devoted to the history of mathematics, the exact sciences and the teaching of these subjects. The Dickstein Forum 2026 begins on Monday, 28 September, and continues through Wednesday, 30 September, at the headquarters of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences on Sławkowska Street.
The event is organised by the Academy’s Inter-Division Commission on the History of Science. Its timing gives Poland’s academic community a focused meeting point at the beginning of the new university year, while its subject connects historical research with a practical question: how mathematical knowledge is explained, preserved and passed on to future generations.
According to the organisers’ preliminary announcement, the forum is centred on the work and legacy of Samuel Dickstein, the Polish mathematician, educator and organiser of scientific life who lived from 1851 to 1939. The meeting is not designed simply as a commemorative gathering. Its programme links the history of individual scholars and institutions with wider questions about mathematical communities, scientific publishing and the methodology of teaching exact disciplines.
The first day focuses on the history of mathematics and the exact sciences, alongside approaches to teaching them. That combination is significant for contemporary education. Historical examples can show students that mathematical ideas were developed through debate, collaboration and revision rather than appearing as finished formulas. For teacher educators, the same material offers a way to connect classroom practice with the development of scientific concepts.
The organisers have also scheduled discussion of relationships between mentors and students in major mathematical communities. This places academic formation at the centre of the forum: not only what researchers discover, but how expertise is transmitted, how young scholars enter a field and how institutions create conditions for sustained work.
A further strand concerns places and publications connected with the history of mathematics and the exact sciences. The programme is expected to include presentations on commemorative sites, scholarly meetings, books and journals. Such subjects may appear specialised, but they address a broader issue facing research institutions across Europe: how to make the history of science visible in libraries, museums, universities and public culture.
The forum will also examine the boundary between specialist scholarship and popular science writing. A planned panel asks how a scholarly article in the history of mathematics can be distinguished from a popular-science article, considering terminology, linguistic style, emotional tone, evaluation and commentary. The question reflects a wider challenge for universities: how to communicate carefully without turning complex research into inaccessible material or oversimplified entertainment.
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences lists the forum among its planned 2026 conferences, while the Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Kraków branch of the Polish Mathematical Society have separately publicised the meeting. The cross-institutional support underlines the forum’s position between history, mathematics, education and the organisation of science.
Presentations may be delivered in Polish or English, with organisers requesting an abridged English version when a talk is given in Polish. That format gives the Kraków meeting an international dimension while keeping it anchored in Poland’s scholarly institutions.
For the city, the event adds a research-focused element to Kraków’s autumn conference calendar. For participants, it offers an opportunity to revisit the intellectual history of mathematics while discussing questions that remain current in education: how teachers explain abstraction, how students become researchers and how the public can distinguish reliable scholarship from looser commentary.
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