Many Americans often don’t realize just how much genius comes from outside the states, particularly in the technology industry. Same applies to competitive sports. People flock to the states for the opportunity, the money, university and so when something exceptional is done, we will often say, well, it happened in America. It was done by an American.
The fact of the matter is that all of us came from somewhere, if not in this generation then a previous one. It’s easy for those who have been in America for a few generations in a row to forget not just our heritage but all the greats who have done incredibly world-changing things….from somewhere else, even if the “genius” act happened to occur on American soil or elsewhere in the world, other than where they were born.
Hungarian genius is vast and until a trip there this summer, I had no idea just how many “greats” came from such a small country. Let’s take a look at some of them who shaped the world across engineering, science, mathematics, physics and more.
Donat Banki (June 6, 1859 – August 1, 1922)
A Hungarian mechanical engineer, inventor of (among many other things) the carburetor, together with János Csonka, in 1893, as the Bánki-Csonka engine. The invention is often, incorrectly credited to the German Wilhelm Maybach, who submitted his patent half a year after Bánki and Csonka. In 1898, Donát Bánki invented the high-compression engine with a dual carburetor, an evaporation method used ever since. The invention of the carburetor helped the development of automobiles, as previously no method was known to correctly mix the fuel and air for engines. Some sources say that the idea of the carburetor came from a flower-girl. One evening, Bánki saw her while walking home from the Budapest Technical University. She was sprinkling water onto her flowers by blowing spray from her mouth. Bánki is also given partial credit for the invention of the Crossflow turbine.
Béla Barényi (1 March, 1907, Hirtenberg, Austria – 30 May, 1997, Sindelfingen, Germany)
Engineer, regarded as the father of passive safety in automobiles. He was born in Hirtenberg near Vienna. After mechanical and electrical engineering studies at the Vienna college, he was employed by Austria-Fiat, Steyr and Adler (predecessor of Audi) automobile companies before joining Daimler-Benz in 1939. Heading the pre-development department of Daimler-Benz from 1939 to 1972, he developed the concept of the crumple zone, the non-deformable passenger cell, collapsible steering column and many other features of Mercedes-Benz automobiles. He is also credited with having conceived the basic design for the Volkswagen Beetle in 1925, five years before Ferdinand Porsche claimed to have done his version. Barényi was nominated for the award of Car Engineer of the Century in 1999 and induced into the Detroit Automotive Hall of Fame in 1994. A Mercedes advertisement featuring Barényi’s image stated: “No one in the world has given more thought to car safety than this man.”
Csaba Horváth (Szolnok, Hungary – April 13, 2004, New Haven, Connecticut)
Renowned Professor of Chemical Engineering at Yale. Father of high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). The American Chemical Society lists Prof. Csaba Horváth among greats like Crick and Watson, Linus Pauling, Pierre and Marie Curie, and Ernest Rutherford, individuals who have contributed most to the development of chemistry in the 20th century. Csaba Horváth, along with J. Calvin Giddings and J.F.K. Huber, had come up with the concept of the first HPLC instruments. In the mid-1960s, Horváth became the first scientist to design, construct, and demonstrate molecular separations using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), which has become a multi-billion-dollar business. The technique made possible quantitative analysis of complex biological mixtures and allowed advances in the areas of biomedicine, pharmacology, and biotechnology.
Laszlo Josef Biro (September 29, 1899 – November 24, 1985)
Inventor. Developed the modern ballpoint pen. In 1938, while working as a journalist, he noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge-free. He tried using the same ink in a fountain pen but found that it would not flow into the tip, as it was too viscous. Working with his brother Georg, a chemist, he developed a new tip consisting of a ball that was free to turn in a socket, and as it turned it would pick up ink from a cartridge and then roll to deposit it on the paper. Bíró patented the invention in Paris in 1938. In 1943 the brothers
moved to Argentina and on June 10 filed another patent, and formed Biro Pens of Argentina. This new design was licensed by the British, who produced ballpoint pens for Royal Air Force aircrew, who found they worked much better than fountain pens at high altitude. László Bíró died in Buenos Aires in 1985. Argentina’s Inventor’s Day is celebrated on Bíró’s birthday, September 29.
Ottó Titusz Bláthy (1860 Tata, Hungary – 1939)
Electrical engineer. Father of the electric transformer, the tension regulator, the watt meter, the alternating current motor, the turbogenerator and high efficiency turbogenerator. He discovered the practical application of the connection between the magnetic field and the excitation creating it. This led to an improved design of DC engines. From the experiments he developed a science of then unforeseeable practical benefits. In 1884, he designed an automatic mercury voltage regulator for direct-current dynamos as his first patent. In the years to come, the generators of several current-generating plants in Italy were operated by this regulator. From 1884 on, on the basis of another patent of his, high-precision watt meters were produced. These were the first instruments with which the power of alternating current could be measured for any phase shift between voltage and current. In 1885, the alternating-current transformer was presented allowing the transmission of power even to great distances with ease.
János Csonka (1852, Szeged – 1939, Budapest)
Co-inventor of the carburetor with Donát Bánki, patented on February 13, 1893. Until 1893, there had been many problems with the ignition of petrol engines due to uneven mixing of gases: the device, used to vaporize gasoline and mix it with the air, could not produce the precise mixing proportions. The carburetor immediately eliminated these problems. As so many times in technical history, the invention was conceived through a freak of fortune. Csonka, self-educated in many fields, had no university degree, but became one of the greatest figures of Hungarian engineering industry, and with the carburetor he has heavily contributed to technical development in the world. He studied the Lenoir motor in Paris in 1874 and there he recognized the prospects of the internal combustion engine. He became head of the training workshop at the Technical University of Budapest at the age of 25 where he employed skilled workers at his own expense, which allowed him to use the workshop for his experiments. Csonka retired at the age of 73 and filed his last patent application at the age of 84.
Jozsef Dallos (1905 – 1979, London)
Physician – Invented the First Practical Contact Lenses. In 1827 English astronomer Sir John Herschel suggests grinding a contact lens to conform exactly to the eye’s surface. It wasn’t until 1929 that Dr. Dallos perfected a method of making molds from living eyes. This enabled the manufacture of lenses that, for the first time, conformed to the actual shape of the eye. He also developed novel fitting techniques and created fluidless lenses. He invented a glass-moulding technique that allowed the lens to take on the characteristics of the sclerotic membrane. He made a copy of the eye’s top layer using a thin copperplate and moulded the molten glass over its surface. After cutting to size, he placed the rough shell on the eye and continued to correct slight imperfections by grinding. Finally he ground the optical effect into the area directly over the cornea. Dallos was a real pioneer in scleral lenses and was one of the first to recognize and discuss internal or lenticular astigmatism.
Miksa Déri – (1854, Bács, Hungary – 1938)
Developed A/C electric generator. He obtained his diploma in hydraulic engineering in 1877 at the Technical University of Vienna. Between 1878 and 1882 he was engaged in designing of the Duna and Tisza river control systems. At the same time he studied electrotechnics. In 1882 he started working at the Ganz factory as an engineer of which he later became the Director. Along with fellow Hungarian, Zipernowsky, they developed a self-excited AC generator during that year, which they began manufacturing in 1883. From 1833 Miksa Déri worked in Vienna as the Austrian representative of the Ganz factory electrical department. In 1885 jointly with Ottó Bláthy and Károly Zipernowsky, they created the transformer. Déri performed the brunt of the experimental work. From 1889 he organized and equipped the electric power station in Vienna. Between 1898 and 1902 he worked on his compensated DC machine. Two years later he designed the repulsion motor which was later named after him. These brush-type motors were mass-produced and used all over the world.
Baron Loránd Eötvös (July 27, 1848 – April 8, 1919)
Mathematician – Developed the method and tool to measure gravity. His inventions made it possible to explore for natural resources like oil, coal, and different ores Scientific literature and usage bears ample evidence of his inventions: the Eötvös Law of Capillarity; the Eötvös Unit of Gravitation (roughly one-billionth of a gram); the Eötvös Gravitational Torsion Balance of almost incredible sensitivity; the Eötvös Effect: and inventions of instruments for measuring terrestrial magnetism for decades to come. The torsion balance made it possible to explore for natural resources like oil, coal, and different ores. Eötvös also recognized the correlation between surface tension and molecular weights of liquids measured at various temperatures. This led to the Law of Eötvös which was declared by Einstein to be one of the pillars of his theory of relativity and was applied in his “theory of equivalence.”
Paul Erdôs (March 26, 1913, Budapest – September 20, 1996 Warsaw, Poland)
Legendary Mathematician: “The Greatest Mathematician of the 20th Century”. When one reads of Paul Erdös, two words invariably come up: prolific and eccentric. While “above average” mathematicians publish some 20 articles in a lifetime, Erdös wrote over 1500 papers, books, and articles, more than any mathematician in history. To say that he was prolific, which means
productive, is a fair description. The March 29, 1999 edition of Time magazine, Michael D. Lemonick writes “In a profession with no shortage of oddballs, he was the strangest. Erdös had no home, no possessions, and no life aside from mathematics.” The statements are true, so eccentric is probably a fair description of Paul Erdös as well. Despite his peculiarities, Paul Erdös was arguably one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century. He is credited with ‘one of the greatest mathematical discoveries of the twentieth century…the simple equation that two heads
are better than one.'”
Jenö Fejes (1877-1952)
Engineer, Many Hungarian engineers and researchers played a significant role in the development of automobiles. One of them, Jeno Fejes, an unfairly forgotten designer, was the first in the world who submitted patents for manufacturing automobile parts by cold-forming, pressing, torch- or spot-welding. He recognized that certain problems with the engines, stemming from casting difficulties or overweight, could be avoided if engines were constructed not using the cumbersome and unreliable casting techniques. The fast development of welding and pressing techniques helped to solve this problem. His first patent, “Extrusion of cylinder heads of combustion engines”, was submitted on September 20, 1921. A year later this was followed by another patent application. Fejes replaced all cast and heavy pressed parts with cold-formed parts made of iron and steel plates. His other patents covered the manufacturing of the engine-house, the steering gear, the rear axle and the motor block. Fejes’ inventions were ahead of their time: They were put into practice only from the 1970’s.
Dr. Albert Fonó (1881, Budapest – 1972)
Mechanical Engineer – Received the first patent on airplane jet propulsion that enabled aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound. Developed Torpedos, Jet Artillery, Air Compressors. He received his diploma in 1903 at the Budapest Technical University. His main professional interest was energetics, though his theoretical work was extensive. After gaining experience at German, Belgian, Swiss and French factories, he obtained his degree of Ph.D. in the technical field. His first invention was an aerial torpedo in 1915, which operated on the jet propulsion principle. This invention increased the effective range of artillery. He patented a new steam boiler in 1923 and an air compressor for mines in 1928. A patent application for his most important invention, the
jet propulsion engine, was filed in Germany. This engine enabled aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound. It took 4 years of preliminary examination before he received his patent in 1932.
William Fox (born Vilmos Fried, January 1, 1879, Tulchva, Hungary – May 8, 1952, New York)
Producer and Hollywood Mogul – Founder of Fox Studios. Fox began his US career in the garment trade and moved into the penny arcade business in 1904. He went on to develop successful film exhibition, distribution, and production operations, merging all three interests with the formation, in 1915, of the Fox Film Corporation, one of the most powerful and creative studios of the silent era. At the peak of his power, Fox owned over 500 movie houses in the US (he bought control of the giant Loew’s, Inc.) and the Gaumont Theatres chain in Great Britain. Fox also invented the global media newsgathering organization emulated today by CNN, BBC, ITN, DW and others. Fox secured his place in history by commercializing talking pictures and then introducing a larger movie screen.
Dennis Gabor (June 5, 1900, Budapest – February 9, 1979, London)
Physicist and inventor of holography, for which in 1971 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Gabor’s research focused on electron optics, which led him to the invention of holography. The basic idea was that for perfect optical imaging, the total of all the information has to be used; not only the amplitude, as in usual optical imaging, but also the phase. In this manner a complete holo-spatial picture can be obtained. Gabor published his theories of optical imaging and holography in a series of papers between 1946 and 1951. Gabor also researched how human beings communicate and hear; the result of his investigations was the theory of granular synthesis. The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) presents its Dennis Gabor award annually,
Joseph Galamb (1881, Mako – 1955)
Ford Chief Engineer: Designed the Model T and Model A Ford, the Fordson Tractor, invented the Ignition Plug and the Planetary Gearbox, and prepared the production of Liberty aircraft engines. One of the most talented technical forebears in American automotive industry. In 1903 crossed the Atlantic and tried his luck in the United States where he began to work with Ford in December 1905 on the Model T. One of its most important part was the planetary gearbox, one of Galamb’s most brilliant inventions. The Model T designed by Galamb was ready by 1908 and 19 thousand cars were sold the next year. He also designed the world-famous Fordson tractor and the ignition plug. During World War I, he designed ambulance vans and light tanks, prepared the production of Liberty aircraft engines. In 1927, he designed the modern and more elegant Model A to replace the now old-Model T. In 1937 he was appointed as chief constructor at Ford, and he kept this position until his retirement in 1944.
Peter Carl Goldmark (December 2, 1906 – December 7, 1977)
Engineer who migrated to he United States. While working at Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the long-playing microgroove 33-1/3 rpm vinyl phonograph discs which defined home audio for two generations. In 1936, Goldmark joined CBS Laboratories, where he developed a technology for color television. The system, first demonstrated on August 29, 1940, and
shown to the press on September 3rd used a rapidly rotating color wheel that alternated transmission in red, green and blue. He then spent the next two decades at CBS Laboratories working on various inventions, chief of which was EVR, the Electronic Video Recorder. On November 22, 1977, President Jimmy Carter presented him the National Medal of Science. “Peter had more
ideas in a day than most others in a lifetime” – CBS President, Frank Stanton
Albert Szent-Györgyi von Nagyrápolt (August 16, 1893 Budapest – October 22, 1986)
Nobel prize winer in Medicine for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion process with special reference to vitamin C & the catalysis of fumaric acid. First to isolate Vitamin C which he found in abundance in Hungarian paprika. Now that’s research Hungarian style. Szent-Györgyi’s early researches at Groningen concerned the chemistry of cell respiration. He described the interdependence of oxygen and hydrogen activation and made his first observations on co-dehydrases and the polyphenol oxidase systems of plants. He also demonstrated the existence of a reducing substance in plant and animal tissues. On his return to Hungary, he noted the anti-scorbutic activity of ascorbic acid and discovered that paprika (capsicum annuum) was a rich source of vitamin C. His persistent studies of biological oxidation led to the recognition of the catalytic function of the C4-dicarboxylic acids, the discovery of «cytoflav» (flavin) and a recognition of the biological activity and probable vitamin nature of flavanone (vitamin P).
Leo Szilárd (Feb 11, 1898, Budapest – May 30, 1964, La Jolla, California)
Physicist. Co-developed the Atomic Bomb, patented the nuclear reactor, catalyst of the Manhattan Project. Conceived the nuclear chain reaction and campaigned for nuclear disarmament, though the first to consider the application of the atom to making bombs. Achieved first sustained nuclear fission reaction with Enrico Fermi. Identified the unit or “bit” of information. As an inventor he has numerous joint patents with Einstein. With Eugene Wigner, he convinced Einstein, the scientific community, and the President to start the Manhattan Project. Albert Einstein’s 1939 letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging development of an atomic bomb – the famous document that started the Nuclear Age – was not written by Einstein at all. It was ghostwritten for him by Szilard. “I … only acted as a mailbox,” Einstein later wrote. “They [Szilard and Wigner] brought me a finished letter, and I simply mailed it.”
Mária Telkes (1900 – 1996)
Chemist, Engineer. Pioneer of Solar Energy: “Mother of the Solar Home,” ” The “Sun Queen,” and “world’s most famous woman inventor in solar energy.” Maria Telkes first became interested in the problems of solar power as a high-school student. She came to the United States in 1925 with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Budapest. After working for twelve years at the Cleveland Clinic as a biophysicist, she went to the research laboratories of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Between 1939 and 1953 she was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a research associate in metallurgy. It was at MIT that she became known for her research in solar energy. The first experimental house using solar heating was built under her supervision in 1948. She designed a number of dwellings that harness solar energy and obtained approximately 20 patents (distillation equipment, portable desalination of seawater on life rafts, heat storage, cold storage). She designed one of her well-known inventions: the solar oven.
Edward Teller (January 15, 1908 Budapest – September 9, 2003)
Theoretical physicist, known colloquially as “the father of the hydrogen bomb,” even though he did not care for the title. Teller emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and was an early member of the Manhattan Project charged with developing the first atomic bombs. During this time he made a serious push to develop the first fusion-based weapons as well, but these were deferred until after World War II. After his controversial testimony in the security clearance hearing of his former Los Alamos colleague Robert Oppenheimer, Teller became ostracized from much of the scientific community. He continued to find support from the U.S. government and military research establishment, particularly for his advocacy for nuclear energy development, a strong nuclear arsenal, and a vigorous nuclear testing program. He was a co-founder of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and was both its director and associate director for many years.
Kálmán Tihanyi (April 28,1897 – February 26,1947)
Physicist. Television pioneer, invented the Picture Tube (Iconoscope), Infrared-sensitive (night vision) television, and Flat TV Tube. Tihanyi studied electrical engineering and physics in Pozsony and Budapest. His most important inventions – bought and developed by RCA, Loewe, and Fernseh AG – concerned the design of the cathode ray tube for television. He patented his fully electronic television system in 1926 and its final iteration in 1928. RCA approached Tihanyi in 1930, after the publication of his patents in England and France. Negotiations continued until 1934, when RCA, ready to unveil its new television system based on Tihanyi’s design, purchased his patents. These covered controlling features that the U.S. patent examiners, citing Tihanyi’s prior publications, had denied Zworykin’s 1930 – 31 applications. U. S. patents assigned to RCA were issued to Tihanyi in 1938-39 with 1928 priority. Now it is became clear that the originator of this pivotal invention was Kalman Tihanyi. In 1939 he submitted a patent application in England for the flat TV tube.
Eugene Wigner (November 17,1902, Budapest – January 1,1995, Princeton, New Jersey)
Nobel Prize in physics for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles. Co-developed the atomic bomb and is known as the Founder of Nuclear Engineering. During his lifetime he was a major player in the development of the atomic bomb, the design of commercial nuclear reactors, and the progress of nuclear science in general. He was responsible for the Manhattan Project idea and letter to President Roosevelt. Received Fermi Award and shared the Atoms for Peace Award with fellow Hungarian Leo Szilárd. He on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago during World War II, from 1942 to 1945, and in 1946-1947 became Director of Research and Development at Clinton Laboratories. Official recognition of his work in nuclear research includes the U. S. Medal for Merit, presented in 1946; the Enrico Fermi Prize (U.S.A.E.C.) awarded in 1958; and the Atoms for Peace Award, in 1960.
Károly Zipernowsky (1853, Vienna – 1942, Budapest)
A/C electronics pioneer. Founder of heavy-current electrical engineering. In 1878 András Mechwart, the Ganz factory’s managing director entrusted him with organizing their electricity department. Since Ganz was the first factory in Hungary engaged in electricity, it thus became his task to develop the power industry in Hungary. Under Zipernowsky’s leadership the factory soon became the pioneer in AC electronics. In 1883 the National Theatre of Budapest was fitted with lights by the Ganz company: this was the first alternating current, incandescent lighting system in Hungary (the third theatre in the world). It is worth mentioning that one of their AC generators, the “giant steam lighting machine”, illuminated the Keleti Railway Station for thirty years. Historical credit is due to Zipernowsky and his colleagues for developing the economical transmission and distribution of light to long distances. In 1889 he developed with Miksa Déri and Ottó Bláthy the transformer and the AC energy distribution system based on transformers connected in parallel shunt. It should also be mentioned that AC or DC was not a settled question from the start. Edison, who backed DC, was proved wrong, the young Hungarian engineers were right.
Richard Zsigmondy (April 1,1865, Vienna – September 24, 1929, Göttingen)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on methods in the study of colloid chemistry. Colloids consist of submicroscopic particles dispersed throughout another substance. He invented the ultramicroscope in the pursuit of his research. Zsigmondy’s interest in chemistry and physics developed at an early age; he studied and carried out many of the experiments in his own small laboratory in his home. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Munich in 1889, Zsigmondy worked in research at Berlin and then joined the faculty of the University of Graz, Austria. From 1908 to 1929 he was director of the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Göttingen where he remained until his retirement in February 1929. In 1925 Zsigmondy was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on the heterogeneous nature of colloidal solutions. This made it possible for him to overcome, with deep gratitude, most of the difficulties he had encountered in the previous years. The Zsigmondy crater on the moon is named in his honor.
Adolf Cukor (January 7, 1873, Ricse, Hungary – June 10, 1976, Century City, CA)
“Mr. Motion Pictures”. Film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures. In 1889, at the age of 16, he emigrated to America. He stayed with his family and worked in an upholstery shop. The 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago drew him to the Midwest. Once there, he started a fur business. In the second year Zukor’s Novelty Fur Company expanded to twenty-five men and opened a branch. He became involved in the motion picture industry when in 1903 his cousin approached him for a loan. Zukor not only gave him the money but insisted on forming a partnership. In 1912 he established Famous Players in Famous Plays as the American distribution company for the French film production Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth. The following year he obtained the financial backing of the Frohman brothers. Their primary goal was to bring noted stage actors to the screen and they created the Famous Players Film Company that produced The Prisoner of Zenda (1913). The studio evolved into Paramount Pictures, of which he served as president until 1936. He revolutionized the film industry by organizing production, distribution, and exhibition within a single company. Zukor was also an accomplished director and producer. He retired from Paramount Pictures in 1959 and thereafter assumed Chairman Emeritus status, a position he held up until his death at the age of 103 in Los Angeles.
Farkas (Wolfgang) Kempelen de Pázmánd (1734, Pozsony then capital of Hungary – 1804, Vienna)
Inventor. First Speaking Machine. His main interst was the study of human speech production, with therapeutic applications in mind. He has been called the first experimental phonetician. He was first to observe minute movements in formation of spoken sounds and in 1788 constructed first “speaking machine.” In his book Mechanismus der menschlichen Sprache nebst Beschreibung einer sprechenden Maschine (1791) he included a detailed description of his speaking machine – in order for others to reconstruct it and make it more perfect. Von Kempelen’s machine was the first that allowed to produce not only some speech sounds, but also whole words and short sentences. The genial Kempelen worked in almost every branch of technical science. He organized the textile industry in the South of Hungary, and built the Pozsony bridge of pontoons in the North, Kempelen was the first to experiment with the use of printed letters for teaching the blind in Paris. Kempelen amazed the world with his “chess-playing machine,” with which he traveled throughout Europe, astonishing even Napoleon. The Emperor is said to have lost his game with the machine, upon which he swept the figures off the board in frustration. The secret of this machine was never revealed.
Charles Simonyi (September 10, 1948, Budapest – )
Billionaire Computer Scientist and Chief Architect, Microsoft Corporation. Father of WYSIWYG and Hungarian Notation. In the 1970s at Xerox PARC, Charles Simonyi led a team of programmers in the development of Bravo, the first WYSIWYG word processing editor. Bravo was a fundamental departure from the way information was previously displayed and organized and it was part of PARC’s contribution that changed the face of computing and ultimately led to personal computing. He holds a bachelor of science degree in engineering mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. He worked for the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center from 1972-80 and joined Microsoft in 1981 to start the development of microcomputer application programs. He hired and managed teams who developed Microsoft Multiplan, Word, Excel, and other applications. In 1991, he moved to Microsoft Research where he has been focusing on Intentional Programming. He is generally thought of as one of the most talented programmers at Microsoft.
Benjamin Lax (December 29, 1915, Miskolc, Hungary – )
Electrical Engineer / Physicist. Founder and Director of Francis Bitter National Magnetic Laboratories (MIT); Professor of Physics, Emeritus (MIT); Semiconductor and magneto-optics pioneer. Radar Pioneer. Developed the radar height finder and discovered radar meteorology. As early as 1955 Lax realized that the creation of continuous and stabile magnetic fields of the order of 250,000 gauss or more would open up an entire new area of research into basic physics. Together with his colleges, he had convinced the Air Force to establish a National Magnet Laboratory at MIT for this purpose. In 1960, after the contract was awarded to build this laboratory, he became its director. He was instrumental in starting the semiconductor laser effort at Lincoln Laboratories. His experiments led to the basic understanding of silicon and related semi-conductors. Lax pioneered the important phenomenon of cyclotron resonance in semiconductors. He then extended these techniques to high magnetic fields (MR) and to the infrared and opened up a new field of modern magneto-optics in semiconductors and semi-metals. For this ‘fundamental contributions to microwave and IR spectroscopy of semiconductors’ he received the 1960 Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society.
János Bolyai (15 Dec, 1802 Kolozsvár, Hungary – 27 Jan, 1860)
Mathematician. Discovered non-Euclidian hyperbolic geometry. Bolyai was educated by his father, famed matmematician Farkas (Wolfgang) Bolyai. By the time he was 13 had mastered calculus and other forms of analytical mechanics. Bolyai also became an accomplished violinist and he performed in Vienna. He was an accomplished linguist speaking nine foreign languages including Chinese and Tibetan. János Bólyai’s absolute geometry laid the foundations of modern geometry by resolving the 2000 year old problem of geometry. It opened new horizons in mathematics, physics, and even in philosophy since it refuted the Kantian concept of “a priori space.” He left more than 20,000 pages of manuscript of mathematical work when he died. “János Bólyai, more explicitly than Riemann, almost a century ahead of General Relativity, pointed at a possible connection between gravity and geometry, proving thereby his deep insight into the understanding of the laws of nature” – Zoltan Bay
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (September 29, 1934, Budapest – )
Psychology professor at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California and is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College. He is noted for his work in the study of happiness, creativity, subjective well-being, and fun, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world’s leading researcher on positive psychology. In his bestselling book, “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,” he interviewed 91 creative people like actor Ed Asner, scientist Jonas Salk, and Senator Eugene McCarthy, to find out what makes them special. He explored states of “optimal experience” when people report feelings of concentration and deep enjoyment and showed that what makes experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called “flow.”
Egon Orowan (Orován) (August 2,1901, Budapest – August 3,1989, Cambridge, MA)
Applied Physicist. Applied physics reached world standards in northern Budapest, where the Tungsram Company was created (1896). The name of this light bulb factory originates from tungsten (wolfram), the beat resistant metal which was patented by Sándor Just and Ferenc Hanaman (1903), as the glowing fiber in light bulbs, instead of Edison’s fragile carbon fibers. Tungsten (and Tungsram) made electric incandescent lamps long-lasting, so that the light bulb could become an everyday item. With Michael Polányi he was responsible for the introduction of the crystal dislocation into physics as the essential mediator of plastic deformation. The Tungsram employees Dennis Gabor, Egon Orowan, and Michael Polányi later became fellows of the Royal Society. Though he occasionally spoke at meetings concerned with science and technology policy, and wrote letters to the press on a number of topics, he was an essentially a private person and left no biographical notes. While working on plasticity and fractures in solids, Orowan studied high resolution photographs brought back by the Apollo missions and proved that the craters on the Moon are not products of lunar volcanism but had been created by impacts of meteors from outside.
Laszlo Lovasz (March 9,1948, Budapest – )
Renowned Yale University Senior Faculty Mathematician, Microsoft Senior Researcher, Computer Scientist: 1999 Wolf Prize Winner. He is a renowned leader in the field of discrete mathematics, an area quickly becoming one of the most important areas of mathematical research, with applications to cryptography, linear programming, coding theory and the theory of computing. Dr. Lovász received his Ph.D. from the prestigious Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 1970. He is editor-in-chief of Combinatorica and editor of 12 other Journals. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and three other Academies. He is also a Senior Researcher in the Theory Group at Microsoft Corporation.
Peter David Lax (May 1, 1926, Budapest, Hungary – )
He is one of the greatest figures in pure and applied mathematics of our times. His work has been seminal and extraordinarily influential in almost all areas of mathematics and its applications where differential equations are involved, such as integrable systems, fluid dynamics and shock waves, solitonic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and so on. His contributions to mathematical and scientific computing are very significant. His work has been recognized by many honors and awards. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1986, shared the Wolf Prize in 1987, the Chauvenet Prize for Mathematics, and shared the American Mathematical Society’s Steele Prize in 1992. He is a past president of the American Mathematical Society, and a former Director of the Courant Institute, and past member of the National Science Board. He worked on the Manhattan Project with many of his fellow Hungarians, is a member of the Los Alamos Lab, and chaired the committee convened by the National Science Board to study Large Scale Computing in Science & Mathematics, a pioneering effort (well-known as the Lax Report).
Anyos Jedlik (January 11, 1800, Zemné – December 13, 1895, Gyor)
Inventor, engineer, physicist. He is considered to be the Unsung Father of the Dynamo. His best known invention is the principle of ‘self-excitement’. With the single pole electric starter, he formulated the concept of the dynamo at least 6 years prior to Siemens and Wheatstone. In essence the concept is that instead of permanent magnets, two electromagnets opposite each other induce the magnetic field around the rotor. As one side of the coil passes in front of the north pole, crossing the line of force, current is thus induced. As the frame rotates further the current diminishes, then arriving at the front of the south pole it rises again but flows in the opposite direction. The frame is connected to a commutator, thus the current always flows in the same direction in the external circuit. Through his textbook he is regarded as one of the establishers of Hungarian vocabulary in physics.
Oscar Asboth (1881 – 1960)
Engineer. Student of Theodore Kármán and Helicopter Pioneer. He was only 18 when he built his first glider pulled up into the air by a motorcycle. Soon he designed an engine-driven plane and a stabilizer which was among the prize-winners at a competition organized by the Austro-Hungarian Defense Ministry. He did military service at an aircraft factory near Vienna where he was in charge of propeller manufacturing. Asbóth constructed and tested some 1500 propellers in the wind channel of the factory. Ten years later Asbóth built his first helicopter. Powered by a 120 HP nine-cylinder engine and propelled by two wooden propellers, each 4.35 meter in diameter, placed parallel above each other and rotating in opposite direction. His model “AH 1” took off vertically on September 9, 1928. For its maiden flight, after 1100 rotations the helicopter swiftly took off, at ten meters stopped, hovered for some ten minutes, than smoothly descended. Asbóth’s merits were much more recognized in foreign countries than in his homeland. In 1954, on the 25th anniversary of the maiden flight of his first helicopter, the Fédération Aeronautique Internationale awarded him the Paul Tissandier diploma for his lifetime achievements in aeronautics.
Zoltán Bay (1900, Gyulavári, Hungary – October 4, 1992, Washington, DC)
Physicist. First to use radar to take measurements of the moon, developed the Light Meter. He developed several patents in the field of high voltage gas discharge tubes, fluorescent and vacuum tubes. He also developed radar for air defense in Budapest during World War II, independently of British and German efforts. With his research team in 1946 he observed the reflection of radar beams aimed at the moon, which was considered revolutionary in space research at that time. Between 1948 and 1955 he worked as a professor of experimental physics at the George Washington University where he was engaged in ionization experiments and light speed measurements, developing the definition of the“light meter.” On the basis thereof his new definition of the meter was accepted by the International Weights and Standards Institute in 1983. From 1955 to 1972 he was a departmental head at the U.S. Bureau of Standards. He achieved considerable success in the physics of active gases, and worked out the method of fast atom counting, operating on the principle of secondary electron multiplying. He justified by experiment that the universal system of measuring time and length based on the speed of light was in fact valid, thus proving Einstein’s idea of space-time.
Rudolf Emil Kálmán (May 19, 1930, Budapest – )
Mathematician. Developed the Kálmán Filter which is the “greatest discovery in statistics in our century.” Kalman filtering is also the method used in GPS (Global Positioning Systems) for navigation. Kalman’s contributions to control theory and to applied mathematics and engineering in general have been widely recognized. In 1985, he was one of four recipients of the Kyoto Prize, inaugurated in that year by the Inamori Foundation of Japan. The Kyoto prize is sometimes referred to as the “Japanese Nobel prize.” It recognizes “outstanding intellectual or creative activities which have significantly enriched the human experience.” Kalman received the prize in the field of advanced technology. He is recipient, among others, of the American Mathematical Society’s Steele Prize (1986), which recognized the fundamental importance of the papers on linear filtering Kalman published in 1960 and 1961.
Alfréd Rényi (March 20, 1921 – February 1, 1970)
Mathematician who made contributions in combinatorics and graph theory but mostly in probability theory. He proved, using the large sieve, that there is a number K such that every even number is the sum of a prime number and a number that can be written as the product of at most K primes. In information theory, he introduced the spectrum of Rényi entropies of order α, giving an important generalisation of the Shannon entropy and the Kullback-Leibler divergence. The Rényi entropies give a spectrum of useful diversity indices, and lead to a spectrum of fractal dimensions. He founded the Mathematical Institute in Budapest, now called The Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics. He wrote 32 joint papers with Paul Erdős, the most wellknown of which are his papers introducing the Erdős-Rényi model of random graphs. Alfréd Rényi is probably the source of the quote: “A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.”, which is generally ascribed to Erdős. He is also famous for having said, “If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.”
Joseph Petzval (January 6, 1807, Szepesbéla, Hungary – September 19, 1891, Vienna, Austria)
Mathematician, inventor, and physicist best known for his work in optics. A Founder of Photography. His Work allowed for construction of modern cameras and made practical portrait-photography possible. Invented Photographic Objective Lens, Darkroom, Opera Glass, and perfected the telescope. Petzval studied and later lectured at the Institutum Geometricum (currently Budapest University of Technology and Economics) in Budapest. He headed the Institute of Practical Geometry and Hydrology/Architecture between 1841 and 1848. Later in life, he accepted the appointment to the chair of mathematics at the University of Vienna. He is considered to be one the founders of geometrical optics, modern photography and cinematography. Among his inventions are the Petzval portrait lens and opera glasses, both still in common use today. He is also credited with the discovery of the Laplace transform and is also known for his extensive work on aberration in optical systems. The Petzval crater on the Moon is named after him.
Sadly there are no women on this list but unfortunately because of the time period. I hope that this will change and the next list we see a hundred years from now has a boatload of women on it.
List taken from a Hungarian venture capital firm’s site in Budapest called Power of the Dream. (fabulous name don’t you think?)
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
