Lewandowski Memorial Conference

In mid September of 2025, the Banach Center of the Polish Academy of Science hosted the conference “Geometry of classical and quantum space-times” in memory of Professor Jerzy Lewandowski—one of the greatest Polish relativists of his generation, and one of the founders of Loop Quantum Gravity, who passed away last year. Held in Warsaw, a city where he lived and worked, the meeting brought together his former students, collaborators, friends and colleagues. The scope of the lectures and presentations reflected his broad scientific interests.

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Topics ranged from the foundations of the canonical formalism of general relativity, through classical black hole theory (including the formalism of isolated horizons), to classical and quantum cosmology, mathematical aspects of the quantisation of gravity, to loop quantum gravity in its canonical and covariant formulations as well as other approaches to quantum gravity. The invited speakers represented the full spectrum of scientific career stages, from PhD students and postdocs to renowned scientists such as Prof. Abhay Ashtekar, Prof. Carlo Rovelli and the nobel laureate Prof. Roger Penrose. One of the principal events of the meeting was the memorial session, where Prof. Lewandowski's long-term friends and collaborators shared their memories of joint work and past-time adventures.

​Hosted in the Banach Center of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a place with a long tradition of serving as a hub for bringing together researchers from across the world, the participants shared their fond memories of Jurek (as he referred to himself among the community) but also continued on carrying on his legacy, discussing and planning further collaborations, in a friendly atmosphere saddened only by the sense of loss.

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Click here to access the presentations through the conference webpage.