Wist u dat?

Wist u dat?

U heeft er wellicht nooit bij stil gestaan hoe vaak u Hongaren in het dagelijks leven tegenkomt! Hier onder vindt enkele voorbeelden.

Calvin Klein

(November 19, 1942 New York - )
The king of fashion
His merchant father emigrated from Hungary to the United States, where - even though he was not fascinated by his son's ambition to become a fashion designer - he ensured the best education for him. Klein, who designed women's coats at first, made it to the cover page of Vogue in 1969 for the first time. Since the 70s he has won the highest awards of the trade and his products have become popular worldwide, especially jeans and T-shirts. The star designer always insists that wide layers of the society wear his symbol on their clothes.

Erno Rubik

(Budapest, July 13, 1944 - )
The creator of Rubik's cube
His name is well-known worldwide: in 1981 the magic cube was the 'Toy of the Year' in many countries, and a world championship was also organized for players. Ernő Rubik, who was an architect by profession, lives in Budapest where he heads his own studio and mainly deals with computer-related innovations.

János Neumann

(Budapest, December 28, 1903 - Washington, February 8, 1957)
The inventor of the computer
Although he could not even have been dreaming about today's computers - since he was dealing with set theory and mathematical game theory, not to mention his research in nuclear energy - he was still the first in 1945 to study the storage of operations beyond the scope of data and information recording. He lived in Princeton in the United States after the early 1930s.

László József Bíró

(Budapest, September 29, 1899 - Buenos Aires, November 24, 1985)
The inventor of the ball-point pen
The ball-point pen is named 'biro' in English after him. Being a journalist and seeing ink in the printing press, he discovered that ink could be applied to paper with the help of a pipe and a ball. He started experimenting in Budapest and continued in Paris then in Argentina, that is where this seemingly simple writing device began its bright career.

Albert Szentgyörgyi

(Budapest, September 16, 1893 - Woods Hole, October 1986)
The discoverer of Vitamin C
The world has been 'healthier' since he produced this highly important universal vitamin from paprika (Hungarian red pepper) in 1930! After 1947, he lived in the United States, where he lectured and headed several internationally renowned research institutes. He mainly conducted research on cancer but he also made important discoveries in the areas of cell respiration, bioelectronics and biogenetics. One of the greatest Hungarian minds, he maintained close contacts with his homeland until his death.

Oszkár Asbóth

(Pankota, March 31, 1891 - Budapest, February 27, 1960)
Inventor of the helicopter
His sole interest was flying objects: he was designing and constructing aeroplanes at a very young age, and he was already studying propellers in a research institute in Fichamend, Austria during World War I. The helicopter equipped with a propeller designed by him lifted from the ground perpendicularly in 1928. His genius was acknowledged by the international scientific world, even in his lifetime.

Ányos István Jedlik

(Szimő, January 11, 1800 - Győr, December 13, 1895)
He invented the dynamo first - not Siemens!
A Benedictine friar, scientist and inventor, Ányos István Jedlik greatly contributed to the vivid scientific life of Hungary in the 18th century. The dynamo is the best known of his inventions, since technology profited the most from this one. But even if we ignore the soda water making machine (which he also invented), the electromotor (developed in 1828) and the first electric motor wagon, which was subsequently built using his invention in 1855, should be equally celebrated as world-famous Hungarian inventions.

Ferenc Liszt

(Doborján, 1811 - Bayreuth, 1886)
Dream of the greatest artist of Romanticism
A virtuosic piano player, already as a child noticed by Beethoven, later he becomes a close friend of Chopin and Berlioz, he supports Wagner to achieve success (and let him marry his daughter!). Several nations - Germany, Austria - claim him as their son, but Liszt was Hungarian, although he spent most of his life in Weimar. He wrote the greatest pieces of romanticism, his works are constantly on the repertoire of the most noted concert halls, and all ambitious musicians consider it a challenge to play a Liszt piece. His Les Preludes and the Hungarian Rhapsodies are leading works in the top list of classical music.

Ede Teller

(Budapest, 1908 - Stanford, 2003)
The inventor of the hydrogen bomb
In the summer of 2003 George W. Bush decorated him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American medal. The physicist is mainly renowned for his work in the areas of thermonuclear energy, quantum mechanics, molecular physics and astrophysics. During his adventurous life - he left Hungary in 1926, he obtained his doctorate degree in 1930, he worked at the University of Göttingen, in the stronghold of physics, then in the United States he participated in the top secret Manhattan project, having a significant role in developing the nuclear bomb - in the 1950s having taken political curves and gaining the support of several presidents, he eventually developed the hydrogen bomb, in the hope of a better future.