Simonyi, Károly

An outstanding scholar-educator whose brilliant lectures, and the trilogy of his great books The Foundations of Electrical Engineering, The Physics of Electronics and Electromagnetic Theory founded an international invisible college in electrical and electronic engineering. His book The Cultural History of Physics bridges the gap between the two cultures, contributing to a new enlightenment.

Károly Simonyi was born on a small village in western Hungary, as the seventh child of a farming family of ten children. The local priest soon recognized the exceptional talent of the bright boy, and brought him to the notice of a distant member of the Simonyi family, a well-known scholar who, for a few months in 1920, was Hungary's Prime Minister. This relative agreed to sponsor the education of the young Simonyi.

In 1940 Károly Simonyi obtained the Dipl. Eng. Degree with full distinction from the Technical University of Budapest,

and gained the L.L.D. degree in law from the University

of Pécs.

After graduation he became assistant professor of the newly established Department of Atomic Physics at the Technical University of Budapest, and research associate at the Tungsram Laboratory directed by Zoltán Bay. He spent the war years working in electromagnetics. Near the end of the war he was called into military service and spent the last months in Russia and Polandas a prisoner of war. Returning home in 1946, he re-joined Zoltán Bay's research team, working on radar systems. His contributions to the first radar-astronomy Moon Echo experiment were fundamental.

In 1948 he became professor of electrical engineering at the University

of Sopron,

where he designed and built a nuclear particle accelerator.

In 1952 Simonyi returned to Budapest, taking up a post as full professor and founding a new chair at the Technical University. At the same time, he became one of the founders of the National Research Institute for Physics,

leading the Department of Atomic Physics. He led nuclear physics experiments, designed and built a series of particle accelerators, and pioneered experimental techniques; for example, his team was the first to study a star-like fusion reactor.

Among his many major contributions to the field was a paper on the steady state of a deuterium tritium plasma mixture under constant pressure in a spherical container, attracting worldwide attention.

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Károly Simonyi was elected chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the National Research Institute for Physics. However, after the revolution he was dismissed from his post at the National Research Institute for Physics, and had to give up his research. Some years later he was also forced to leave the chair he founded at the Technical University of Budapest.

The students lost most. He had always been an inspired teacher. The writer of a textbook is akin to a concert performer: not the composer, but a creative interpreter. Truly, he had been an exceptional teacher, offering to his audience a memorable creative performance at each lecture. Aggrieved by his absence from the University, the students invited him to give classes at their halls of residence.

So, in 1970, he decided to devote his attention to the history of physics, to the integration of human knowledge, to filling the gap between the two cultures. He was convinced that there is one single human culture, to which every branch of science and art contributes. He started lecturing on the history of the sciences, and working on a new book: The Cultural History of Physics, published in 1976. His lectures were attented by his students of electrical engineering and by students of all faculties, by colleagues, scholars, and high-school teachers. In a decade, 64,000 copies of the book were sold. In 1990 the book was first published in German, and the second revised edition appeared in 1995.

At a difficult time of the history of Central and Eastern Europe, Professor Simonyi's teaching and personal example radiated hope among be his students and work as young scientists under his direction. Many of them became leading researchers as Árpád Csurgay and Tamás Roska.

Awards: Prometheus Medal of Roland Eötvös Physical Society (1980), Golden award of Work (1982), First Degree of Award of State (1985), Doctor honoris causa of Technical University of Budapest (together with Ede Teller ) (1991), Scientist of the Year (1996) (Since then a star unvisible by eyes at the forefinger of constellation Andromeda has borne his name.), Flag Order of Hungarian Republic, a Magyar Köztársasági Érdemrend Középkeresztje.(1997), Prize of Hungarian Heritage (1998), Golden Medal of Hungarian Academy of Science (2000)

nuclear particle accelerator

"The accelerator was ready, we were prepared to conduct the first particle acceleration experiment in Hungary. The complex ion source was controlled from the ground; but, to observe the phenomena, I myself was aloft in the metal sphere of the high-voltage part of the equipment, instrument in hand, curled up like a baby in his mother's womb. They locked me into the sphere, tightened all the screws, and polished the surface of the sphere before applyingthe voltage. They increased the voltage gradually to three quarter million volts, while I was calling out to them from time to time.
The experiment was successful, and finally I could clamber out from my place of work at four o'clock in the morning."

elected chairman of the Revolutionary Council
"I felt that I must accept this role: I loved the Institute, I built it, I regarded its every building, every item of equipment as one of my own children, and I believed that I might use my position and capabilities to protect it from political extremists on either side."

had to give up his research
"In 1957I had to leave my institute. They even suppressed the publication of my book on nuclear reactors. This left a void in my life. To fill it, I turned to the study of Chinese characters. This saved me from a nervous breakdown - a life-saver."

students invited him to give classes
"My students asked me to select my subject freely. I chose history: the history of physics, the exciting period of the 17th Century. I talked of demolishing the old order and building the new. I talked of the emergence of modern physics, but also of the context of the subject: of life, of art, of philosophy. The interest and excitement of young people was astonishing. They did not allow me to rest, they asked me to continue: when am I holding the next talk, where can they read about the subject. I am a teacher, I could not ignore my students, I had to respond to their questions. That's when I started to make a systematic study of the history of science."

one single human culture
"To be cultured is not a static state to be attained once and for all: it is a never-ending process of life-long toil and maintenance. Culture means perceiving general links and structural inter-dependencies: we are part of a material and intellectual world, and our environment includes the exploding stars of distant galaxies, as much as the Odyssey of Homer. Culture means knowledge of our place in the universe, in the living world, in society, in our family; and it means deliberate actions arising from our place in the world. Culture includes understanding of major systems and processes such as history and knowledge of facts which anchor general principles in reality. Culture extends to our moral standards and ethical norms."

Csurgay, Árpád István
(1936 - ...)

Árpád Csurgay graduated at the Technical University of Budapest, Communication Engineering (1959), he obtained Ph.D. Degree from the Technical University of Budapest, Circuit and System Theory (1964) for his thesis: "Synthesis of Lumped-Distributed Circuits" (in Hungarian). He was Postdoctoral Fellow at the Electrophysics Department of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, N.Y. (1966-67). He earned his D.Sc. Degree at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1973. Title of his thesis: "Postulational Approach to Active-Distributed Systems: Modeling - Analysis - Realizability"

Affiliations:

Research associate, later director of research at the Telecommunication Research Institute. (1959 1979)
Research fellow at the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (1980 1985)
Part-time Professor at the Technical University of Budapest. (1987 1993)
Elected Deputy Secretary General of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (1985 1993)
Full Professor at the Technical University of Budapest at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information technology. (1990 2006)
Gastprofessor, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Institut für Angewandte Physik.(1994 April to June)
Gastprofessor, Technische Universität München, Lehrstuhl für Netzwerktheorie und Schaltungstechnik.(1995 May to July).
Melchor Chair Visiting Professor. (1996 1997)
Part-time Visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, US.(1998 )
Professor at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Information Technology. (2000 )

Memberships: Member of the Scientific and Steering Committees of the ECCTD (European Conference of Circuit Theory and Design) series (1972), Deputy Editor of the International Journal of Circuit Theory and its Applications (John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, England) (1973), Council Member of the International Institute of Applied System Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria (1986 1993), Associate Editor IEEE Transactions of Circuits and Systems (1999 2003), Member of the IEEE (Institute of the Electrical and Electronic Engineers), N.Y. (1987), Fellow of the IEEE (1992), Member of Academia Europeć, London (1989), Council Member of Academia Europeae (1991 1994), Member of European Academy of Arts and Sciences, Salzburg (1990).

Awards: Silver and Gold Medal for Patents (1965, 1973), Puskás Tivadar Award (1971), Award of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1971), Roland Eötvös Award (1975), Honoris Causa Pro Scientia (1989), Cross of Honour of the Hungarian Republic (1993), Pázmány Péter Award (1995), Széchenyi Award (1998), Simonyi Károly Award (2002).

Roska, Tamás
(1940. szept. 24. - )
Tamás Roska received the diploma in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Budapest in 1964 and the Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees in Hungary in 1973 and 1982, respectively. He is the Fellow of the IEEE and elected member of four Academies of Sciences in Europe.
Since 1964 he has held various research positions, since 1982 he has been with the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences where he is presently head of the Analogic and Neural Computing Research Laboratory. He is also a Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at the Pázmány P. Catholic University, Budapest. He has taught several courses, presently, he is teaching graduate courses on "Emergent Computations" and "Cellular Neural Networks and Visual Microprocessors". In 1974 and since 1989 in each year, he has been Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley.
His research interests: cellular wave computing, info-bionics, cellular neural networks, nonlinear circuit and systems, neural electronic circuits, and analogic spatial-temporal supercomputing and computational complexity. He has published more than hundred research papers and four books (partly as a co-author). His seminal paper on the CNN Universal Machine, co-authored by L. O. Chua, has received several hundred citations.
Tamás Roska is a co-inventor of the CNN Universal Machine (with Leon O. Chua) and the analogic CNN Bionic Eye (with Frank S. Werblin and Leon O.Chua), both are US patents owned by the University of California at Berkeley.
In 2002, 2003 he had been serving as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications, the Journal of the Franklin Institute, and the Neural Processing Letters. He has been a founding Chair of the Technical Committee on Cellular Neural Networks and Array Computing in the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. He received the IEEE Third Millenium Medal and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society's Golden Jubilee Award. He has been awarded a "doctor honoris causa" from the University of Veszprém.
He received in Hungary the Széchenyi Prize, the Szentgyörgyi Prize and the D. Gabor Prize, the Grand Prize of the Pro Renovanda Cultura Hungariae", and very recently the 2002 Bolyai Prize.
Tamás Roska is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, the St. Steven Academy, and a Fellow of the IEEE.