One of the greatest Hungarian scientists, Loránd Eötvös was born 172 years ago
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Hungary has given many great people to the world. Scientists, thinkers, inventors and doctors alike. Throughout the years many achieved great things either by inventing something to make our lives simply easier, like the ballpoint pen by László Bíró or the telephone exchange by Tivadar Puskás, some made it safer for doctors to practice medicine, such as Ignác Semmelweis and other revolutionised the world, such as Oszkár Asbóth or Ede Teller, without whom the world would not be where it is today.
Today we celebrate the birthday of a person of similar magnitude. Today, on the 27th of July, we celebrate the 172nd anniversary of the birth of ‘vásárosnaményi báró Eötvös Loránd Ágoston’, Baron Loránd Eötvös de Vásárosnamény in English, or Baron Roland von Eötvös, as he was commonly referred to in English Literature. He was a physicist, politician, university professor, academic and mountaineer. His scientific successes have contributed significantly to how we live today, and one of the most successful universities of Hungary bears his name. Eötvös Lóránd University is even recognised among the international elite universities.
Early life
He was born in Buda in 1848, the year of the Hungarian revolution – which could be viewed as a sign that he would be destined to achieve great things. Eötvös was the son of the Baron József Eötvös de Vásárosnamény, a well-known poet, writer, politician, and Minister of Religion and Public Education. His father also played an important part in the Hungarian political and intellectual life of the 19th century. His mother was the Hungarian noble lady Ágnes Rosty de Barkócz.
He studied in the Piarist High School and graduated in 1865. He continued his studies in Budapest in both law and natural sciences, under many great scientists in the fields of chemistry, geology, and mathematics.
Studies and achievements
As it would seem evident, he preferred natural sciences and chose to pursue natural sciences and went to the University of Heidelberg in 1868. This was the very best where one could learn natural sciences at that time, and fortunately for Eötvös, three very famous scientific figures have been teaching him; Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, German physicist, Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz, German physicist and physician and Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist. He also studied at Königsberg for a semester.
He finished his doctorate with a summa cum laude acknowledgement in 1870.
In 1871, after his return to Hungary, he wanted to be a private tutor at the university that bears his name since 1950. The peculiarity of it was that his application was assessed by Ányos Jedlik, the inventor of the dynamo and great physicist, among others. In 1875, he received his own laboratory, where he could conduct his experiments.
A few years later, after Ányos Jedlik’s retire, he became the head of the department of experimental physics when he was only 30.
In 1873, he received a correspondent member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and ten years later became a full-time member, but only a few years later, he held the title of President between 1889 and 1905.
This is not everything, but we need to reserve some space for his revolutionary achievements. He also held many positions outside sciences; he established a scientific association and started a magazine, was the president of the Hungarian Tourist Association, and he loved to climb mountains. One of the peaks – a 2837 metres high – in South Tirol was named after him.
Scientific achievements
He played a leading part in the field of sciences in Hungary for almost 50 years but had a significant impact on international research as well. He was first recognised internationally for his work and experimenting with capillarity, which is the phenomenon when liquid flows in narrow spaces without the assistance of external forces, or even seemingly acting against opposing forces, such as gravity. You can see this effect every day, as this is the reason why tissue paper can absorb water so well. Interestingly, the first paper of Albert Einstein was also on capillarity.
