Iwo Białynicki-Birula was born in Warsaw, Poland, on the 14th of June, 1933. In the years 1949–1952 he attended Technical Vocational High School (Mechanical Engineering). He obtained Master degree (1956), Ph.D. (1959) and D.Sci. (1962) in Theoretical Physics at the Warsaw University. He has been a full professor at the Warsaw University since 1966 and at the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1980 and a visiting professor at many different universities and institutions in the USA, USSR and Germany. He has been elected Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1976), Foreign Member of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters (1985) and Corresponding Member of the Polish Academy of Knowledge in Krakow (1990) and has been awarded the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Prize of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1975), the Medal of the Commision for National Education of Poland (1976), the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Prize (New York, 1980) and the Alexander von Humboldt Award (Bonn, 1994). He published over hundred and sixty papers and ten books.