Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

GÁBOR PALLÓ* MICHAEL POLANYI'S FIRST SCHOOLS IN SCIENCE The literature about Michael Polányi's philosophy is extensive as it is one of the classics, particularly in the field of philosophy of science. His Personal Knowledge has been analyzed in short papers as well as in thick books sometimes with agreement sometimes with disagreement but never neutrally. For some philosophers Polányi's works in chemistry is not even known. Historians of science consider him a great personality of the 20. century physical chemistry and some fields of physics. It is a problem to be investigated in the future whether a relationship could be found between this philosophy and chemistry or they are as independent from each other as if they were created by two different persons. Here, however, the origin of his scientific thinking will be analyzed though not in philosophy only in chemistry. This part of his career has not been investigated yet as a detailed Polányi-biography does not exist only some sketches. His philosophical commitments drew back to his education in Hungary, to his family, to his early schools, and to his early social, political experiences. In 1928 Michael Polányi lived in Berlin. The editor of a popular Hungarian newspaper asked him, about his views on the circumstances in Hungary. He compared it with those of Germany, where „the professors grab the hands of students, who are thought to be gifted with great enthusiasm. They are like art collectors, whose main passion is to discover talents." He contrasted this situation to that of Hungary. ..Looking back, I see Michael Polányis stuck in the mud halfway, my good friends, unknown poor boys, a dozen of them like me or even better, fired from the university, knocked down by mumerus clausus." (1) This sorrow description does not explain how he could get near the German professors who ..grabbed his hands like art collectors." He says in the same paper: „In the second semester of my university years, Pgot to the laboratory of Ferenc Tangl who took care of me from then on. In 1913,1 became medical doctor. Thanks to the help of Ignác Pfeiffer, accompanying a rich boy, I could go to Karlsruhe next year to study chemistry at the Technical University." (2) In this paper, I try to show these first schools of Michael Polányi which, in spite of his sad remarks, existed and could produce extremely good scientists. To be sure, around the turn of the century, a generation of outstanding scientists was born in Hungary in different branches of sciences, like-philosophy, psychology, sociology and natural sciences. The long list of the latter contains such names as George de Hevesy, the Nobel laureate discoverer of the radioactive tracer Technical University of Budapest, Institute of Physics, H-1S21 Budapest