Polányi, Mihály
(Budapest, March 12th, 1891 – London, February 22nd, 1976 )
One of the most interesting Hungarian scientists living in emigration, who obtained professional prestige and recognition both as a chemist and a thinker.
Having finished the secondary school in the famous Budapest teacher-training school (Mintagymnasium) he started as a physician, receiving his medical diploma in 1914. In the meanwhile, however, his interest turned from physiology to chemistry and studied physical chemistry at the Karlsruhe University 
as a scholarship holder with the help of Ignác Pfeifer, professor of chemistry at the József Technical University of Budapest.
On the basis of his dissertation written on adsorption he obtained his doctorate in 1918 in Budapest, although he had been accepted as scientist already on the basis of his paper on thermodynamics in 1912, under the influence of Einstein's declaration of appreciation.
In 1919 politics in Hungary after the war made Polányi an émigré to Karlsruhe, Germany which, given his scientific interests, seems to have suited him, to deal with physical chemistry. In 1920 he undertook a position at the invitation of Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Faserstoffchemie, then he became department head at the Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie.
After Hitler came into power he moved to England and taught at Manchester Universityv at the Department of Physical Chemistry. In several fields of physical chemistry he attained remarkable successes, in spite of this he changed profession at the age of nearly sixty; from 1948 he taught at the Department of Social Studies at Manchester University until retiring in 1958.
For almost ten years, as an scientific advisor of United Incandescent Lamp and Electrical Co. Ltd., he took part in the development of the krypton lamp while working in Germany and then in England. Lipót Aschner invited him to be head of the factory's research laboratory, but he turned it down and he did not accept the invitation home after the war either.
He earned international recognition with his activity in chemistry. His results in the field of adsorption kindled Einstein's interest as well. He was engaged in solid-state physics, crystallography, reaction kinetics. In solid-state physics he studied with special care the characteristics of single crystals and attained significant recognition in connection with plasticity attributes and dislocations. His results in X-ray diffraction relate first of all to the description of fibre structure of cellulose. In reaction kinetics, representing the central theme in his activity, in the middle of the twenties he wrote a dissertation on quantum theory, on the association and dissociation reactions with Eugene Wigner, as his consultant. He played a fundamental role in the elaboration and wide application of the theory of transitional state.
From the forties he was engaged in social sciences as his program and then declared himself even formally as one of the social scientists. He had been writing occasional studies on things other than chemistry for a long time, e.g. a whole book on the unserviceable character of Soviet economic management in 1935. He wrote 9 books the most famous of which is „Personal Knowledge”. In the bulky volume published in 1958 he proves the unavoidable character of personal element in science while analysing the most important problems of science philosophy.
Memberships: International Academy of Philosophy of Sciences (1929), Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (1929), foreign member of Society of Science, Letters, and Arts, Naples (1933), Society for Freedom in Science (1941), foreign member of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (1949), Royal Society (1944), foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962).
Honorary doctorate: Princeton University, New Jersey (1946), University of Leeds (1947), University of Aberdeen (1959), University of Notre Dame, Indiana (1965), Wesleyan University (1965), University of Manchester (1966), University of Toronto (1967), Cambridge University (1969).
Award: Nuffield Gold Medal, Royal Society of Medicine, London (1970)
Bibliography:
A selected bibliography of more than 350 items can be found in E. Wigner, R.A.Hodgkin, Polányi Mihály élete (The life of Michael Polányi) (text in Hungarian) Polanyiana, 2002/1-2., 19-62. URL: http://www.chemonet.hu/polanyi/02_12/03-pmelete.pdf
References:
Ignotus, P., The Hungary of Michael Polanyi. In Ignotus P. et al., The Logic of personal knowledge: essays presented to Michael Polanyi on his seventieth birthday. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961
Langford, T. A. & Poteat, W. H. Intellect and hope: essays in the thought of Michael Polanyi. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1968
Torrance, T. The place of Michael Polanyi in the modern philosophy of science. (Mimeographed.) 1974
E. P. Wigner and R. A. Hodgkin : Michael Polanyi, in Royal Society's Biographical Memoirs 1977 vol 23 pp 413-448.
The Michael Polanyi Liberal Philosophical Association: URL: http://www.polanyi.bme.hu/
Model Grammar School (Mintagymnasium)
On József Eötvös' initiative the Secondary School Teacher Training School of the Hungarian Royal University of Sciences came into existence in 1870. Outstanding academics taught on its departments, on the department of mathematics and natural sciences, e.g., Ottó Petzvál, Sándor Nékám, Ányos Jedlik, Károly Thán and Loránd Eötvös. To assist probationary teachers grappling with the problems of demonstration lessons, a demonstration secondary school started its operation on Mór Kármán's proposal in 1872. Its objective was …to provide a picture of the life of such a model school in which the moral and intellectual progress of students is the concern of the whole teaching staff and which has to serve as an encouraging model for probationary teachers and as an inspiring memory for teachers.
This very famous secondary school having trained a lot of outstanding scientists started its operation in 1872. Among its students, Theodore von Kármán, natural scientist, Michael Polányi, Edward Teller, as well as Thomas Balogh and Nicholas Káldor economists are only a few greatest names.
Pfeifer, Ignác
(Szentgál, September 30th 1867- Budapest, September 7th 1941)
In September 1887 he started his studies in the section of chemistry at József Technical University and got a diploma of chemical engineering here in 1892, and was an assistant lecturer for two years at the Faculty of Chemical Technology. A product of this period is the book entitled Alcohol tables of 735 pages
Laying down his position as assistant lecturer he started to work as a chemist in the chemical laboratory of MÁV (Hungarian State Railways). First he developed a procedure for the determination of the hardness of water; since then the so-called Wartha-Pfeifer process has been a part of the history of water chemistry. In his publications he dealt with the problems of the chemical purification of boiler waters and the reduction of corrosion and crustification for four years. He was engaged in heating technique, studied the suitability of home coals and proved the superfluousness of a considerable percentage of the import. His book entitled „Survey of Boiler Furnace Constructions" was published in 1898.
In 1900, after successful trial lecture he was appointed private professor at József Technical University. As a private professor he also undertook the edition of two journals.
Pfeifer opened a technical bureau in 1903. At that time he was engaged in problems of gas generators and assembled a gas analysing apparatus for them, he patented a process relating to the production of tar-free generator gas from brown coal. With Wartha he took part in the development of the gas factories of Budapest and he studied composition of natural gas in Hungary. He made a detailed proposition regarding the exploitation of natural gas. He was successfully engaged in the halogenation of carbon hydrides.
In 1907, on the recommendation of Wartha, Pfeifer was honoured with the title of assistant professor. He got the nomination of full professor at the Department of Chemical Technology and was for seven years one of the most successful professors at the Technical University
Later he was adviser for Gaswerk Baumberg in Hamburg, but he soon accepted the invitation of Lipót Aschner to be the head of the research and development laboratory to be established in United Incandescent-Lamp and Electrical Co. Ltd.
Pfeifer played a determining role in these years in the Hungarian Chemical Society where he was elected acting president in 1929.
krypton lamp
A lamp that has its space filled with krypton to produce a light source with unique characteristics. According to Imre Brody's hypothesis, the evaporation of tungsten atoms from the incandescent filament through the medium of gas was regulated not by diffusion only, but was also influenced by other physical laws of. To eliminate such problems, he used gas of greater molecular weight. By using krypton gas, the lamp attained longer life and better performance. By chosinig proper length and diameter of the incandescent wire the filament's glowing heat can be increased without reducing the lamp's life span.
X-ray crystallography/diffraction
In older usage, crystallography is the scientific study of crystals for determining the arrangement of atoms in solids. Before the development of X-ray diffraction crystallography the study of crystals involves measuring the angles of crystal faces relative to theoretical reference axes and establishing its geometry and features of symmetry.
X-ray crystallography is a technique in which the pattern produced by the diffraction of X-rays - i.e. the bending and spreading of waves – passing the closely spaced lattice of atoms in a crystal is recorded and analyzed.