Mieczysław Wolfke (29.05.1883-3.05.1947) was a Polish physicist and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1932). He was born in Łask. In 1901-07 he studied at the universities of Liège and Paris. In 1907—10 he worked at the University of Wrocław, in 1914—22 at the Zurich Polytechnic and the University of Zurich, and in 1922—39 he was professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute. He organised the Institute of Low Temperatures (Warsaw).
His main research was in the field of low-temperature physics and optics, in particular the theory of the diffraction image. In 1911 he designed a new mercury-cadmium lamp; in 1927, together with W. Keesom, he discovered two forms of liquid helium, helium I and helium II, and he studied the properties of liquid helium and of liquid and solid hydrogen. In 1920, in the paper “On the possibilities of the optical imaging of a molecular lattice”, he put forward and tested experimentally the idea of a holographic method of obtaining images. (The holographic method of recording and reproducing objects was proposed in 1948 by the English physicist D. Gabor, which led to a new line in applied optics, holography.)
Wolfke's work was also on the theory of heat, quantum theory and electric discharges in gases.