Stanisław Ulam, the genius Polish mathematician who participated in the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, will now have his story told on screen.
The film about him, “Adventures of a Mathematician” directed by German Thorsten Klein, will be shown in Berlin during the 70th International Film Festival, and will explore his life and role in building both the atomic and hydrogen bombs.
The lead role of Ulam will be played by Philippe Tłokiński. Fabian Kocięcki will play the famed physicist John von Neuman.
The film, first shown in the United States at the Palm Springs festival, was created with help from the Polish Film Institute, Telewizja Polska (Poland’s public television) and the Łódź film fund.
Germany’s Dragonfly Films, Britain’s Mirror Productions and Poland’s Shipsboy production company are responsible for the production of the film.
ADVENTURES OF A MATHEMATICIAN by Thor Klein from Indie Sales on Vimeo.
Stanisław Ulam was born in 1909 in Lwów. He studied at the Lwów Polytechnic and one his lecturers was the legendary mathematician Stefan Banach. Ulam was the representative of the Lwów School of Mathematics.
Just before the Second World War, Ulam left Poland after receiving an American visa. He took his brother with him and never saw the rest of his family again. After the war, he only found his cousins in Israel and France.
Ulam worked on the Manhattan Project in the Los Alamos National Laboratory where he was responsible for the statistics of neutron replication.
After the war he remained in the U.S. and married a French literature student. He died in 1984.
