Magyar News, 1998. szeptember-1999. augusztus (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1999-04-01 / 8. szám
A MAN AND HIS BALANCE When somebody’s name is on buildings, in institutes, on the üst of statesmen, Or identifying scientific achievements, one has to stop and think of giving special attention and respect to that person. There are quite a few but this time I would like to stay with a Hungarian who did relatively small things that took over the world in a big way. The person whom I want to talk about is Loránd Eötvös, a scientist in physics. I was fortunate to have a friend, Lajos Fülöp, an editor of a scientific magazine in Budapest, whom I asked for some material. I chose him not only because of his position, but he happened to be married to a relative of Eötvös. In the mean time I was trying to work myself through some scientific literature and I must confess that it was very hard to decipher those special words and phrases. I was hoping that my friend would send me things that are easier to digest. Hope remained hope and I The Torsion Balance received many more great scientific terminology. Eötvös was bom during the turmoil of the 1848 Revolutioa His father was a statesman and a politician. He attended a catholic high school in Pest and after that enroUed at the University. Then he went to Königsberg and Heideiberg and studied under world famous professors such as Kirchhoff, Bunsen and Helmholz. He received his doctoral degree in Heidelberg in 1870. Eötvös went back to Pest and became the physics professor at the University. On the faculty he followed the retired Ányos Jedlik, who among many things invented the dynamo. The “Eötvös Law” was his first achievement. He made measurements of the surface tension of liquids. If you look at water in a tube, you will notice that the water is higher around the edges. If you look at mercury in a tube you will notice that it is dome shaped, lower around the edges. There are factors like temperature that modify the surface tension. Then he researched the weight of a moving object. He proved that something moving eastward decreases its weight, or in the opposite direction, if a body is moving westward its weight increases. Naturally this is called the “Eötvös Effect.” All these experiments were helpful to Einstein, who said that these were pillars to his theory on relativity. The greatest impact Eötvös made was with the Torsion Balance. Basically it is a simple, but very sensitve instrument. To understand what it is about we should approach it from a different angle. We all know that gravity is a force pulling towards the earth. If you put a feather and a stone in a vacuum space they will fall at the same speed with no regard for their size, shape or mass. Eötvös in his papers talked about the gravity space. This means that all mass has its own graviy. If you are near a mountain then there is the Earth’s vertical gravity and the mountain’s horizontal gravity. His Torsion Balance is capable measuring both these pulling effects. The first field measurements he did were on the Sághegy in western Hungary. He calculated the mass of the mountain and found that the equipment made the same reading and gave the same result. The next step was on the ice of Lake Balaton. With the Torsion Balance he was able to measure formations below the surface. By 1916 he was already mapping out the Earth’s cmst and showing where the oil deposits were. The Torsion Balance was used to discover oü in the Near- Mid- and Far-east, in Asia, India, Texas and also Hungary. Professor Sigmund Hammer at the University of Wisconsin, at the 80-th Anniversary of the first measurement, wrote a letter to professor Barta in Hungary: “The world owes a great debt to your illustrious countryman. I am enclosing a copy of the Torsion Balance map which lead to the first oilfield discovery by geophysicists in the western hemisphere,” The work, with the Torsion Balance, out in the field was carried on by a professor who assisted Eötvös with the original measurements. He was Hugo Böckh. In 1920 an English company assigned him to go to Persia and take measurements in the middle East. He was also responsible for discovering oilfields in America, Canada, and Venezuela. One would think that the scientific activity took all of Eötvös’ time. Well not exactly. He founded the tourist house on the Dobogókő Hegy. He founded the very famous Eötvös Collegium. He became head of the University, then president of the Hungarian Scientific Academy, and at one time was Minister of Education. His speaches shed light on better ways of teaching and developing science. Here are some quotations from Eötvös:”The schools offer science, the teaching there is scientific, but only where scientists are teaching. I may add that I don’t call a person who knows a lot a scientist, but I call a scientist the one who is searching the knowledge.” or, “There is no school capable of teaching cleverness; the school for that is life itself. ” Eötvös, is a Hungarian known to the world. Joseph F. Balogh The Hungarian Scientific Academy in 1864 Page 3
