Reformátusok Lapja, 1972 (72. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)
1972-03-01 / 3. szám
6 REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA following year, research has expanded rapidly in America and in Britain. Gabor’s technique known as holography is a method of three-dimensional lensless photography by coherent light in which a light wave issuing from an object is “frozen” into a photographic emulsion by means of a second beam of coherent light. The resulting photograph or hologram can then be reconstructed by the second beam of light alone to give a three-dimensional image. Dr. Gabor also has been responsible for numerous mathematical contributions to the advancement of communications and color television. He holds many patents in this field, and he is a member of the engineering team at CBS Laboratories which developed Electronic Video Recording (EVR), a system which makes it possible for the first time to play on conventional television sets pre-recorded programming from motion picture film and videotape. In June of 1971 Dr. Gabor was named a recipient of the distinguished George Washington Award presented annually by the American Hungarian Studies Foundation. The presentation of the award will be made in 1972 and thus he will join the company of other Hungarian-born Nobel laureates who have been so honored. Another Washington awardee, Dr. Peter C. Goldmark is president- emeritus of CBS Laboratories, Inc. and was born in Budapest also. Professor Gabor is Hungarian by birth, and became a British citizen after settling in Britain. Born in Budapest in June, 1900, he received his first impetus toward his future career from his father, a businessman with a passionate interest in the great inventors in the field of engineering. He studied at the Technical University in Budapest, then in Berlin, at the Technische Hochschule at Charlottenburg, where he obtained a diploma in electrical engineering, and subsequently, a doctorate. He carried out research as assistant at the Technische Hochschule and as research associate with the German Research Association for High Voltage Plants, before joining the great electrical firm of Siemens & Halske AG as a research engineer. Berlin in those years was a stimuating environment for a young scientist, and Dr. Gabor became familiar with the lectures of Einstein, Planck, Schrödinger and von Laue, all active there. His own early research was concerned with one of the first high speed cathode ray oscillographs; several of the features he developed remained standard for a long time. At Siemens, he worked among other things, on gas discharges and invented molybdenum ribbon seal in quartz. He also became interested in the theory of the discharge of plasma, and 20 years later at the Imperial College, was to produce an explanation of the interaction between electrons in certain plasmas. In 1933 with the coming of the Nazis, Dr. Gabor left Germany, returning to Hungary, and then traveling to Britain the following year, to begin a long association with British Thomson-Houston as research engineer at their Rugby works. In 1936, he married Marjorie Louise Butler whom he met when working in Rugby. He continued his work on gas discharges, and during the early postwar years began work on the electron microscope, developing the technique of holography, known in those days as “wavefront reconstruction.” In 1948 he left BTH, and the following year, took up the appointment of Reader in Electronics in the Imperial College, University of London, where the late Lord Jackson was at that time Professor of Electrical Engineering. He was given freedom to concentrate on research, and during his years in that post supplied several inventions to industry. In 1958 he was appointed professor of applied Electronic physics. His inaugural lecture given the following year and since printed, aroused wide interest. He spoke on, “electronic inventions and their impact on civilization.” Describing some of the inventions on which he was working, he suggested that it might be possible to make a machine capable of simulating thought, but gave a significant warning: “Absoute power will corrupt not only men but machines.” He also considered the social problems of a world in which inventions could leave men with an amount of leisure for which they were inadequately prepared. He was to return to this question in his book, Inventing the Future, published in 1963. This is a work of social philosophy which discusses what Professor Gabor calls a trilemma; the three great dangers confronting civilization, and indeed, humanity; destruction by nuclear war, crippling by overpopulation, and the demoralization arising from too much leisure for people unequipped to make use of it. He wrote with guarded optimism of all three, in a book which is full of stimulating thoughts. During the 1960’s Professor Gabor interested himself in thermionic electrical power generation, and in 1965 he gave the opening lecture at a conference attended by 200 thermionic experts from 20 countries, at the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He retired from his professorship in 1967, and has since been professor emeritus and a senior research fellow of the Imperial College. He is also staff scientist at CBS Laboratories in Stamford, Connecticut. Dr. Gabor has received many recognitions of his work: Fellowship of the Royal Society, 1956 Honorary membership of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1964 The Cristoforo Colombo Prize of Genoa, International Institute of Communications, 1967 The Thomas Young Medal of the Physical Society, 1967 The Michelson Medal of the Franklin Institute,
