Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-02-01 / 2. szám
FRATERNITY 7 which were not nationalized could get only limited amounts of work and materials with which to work. Freedom of travel and speech were not possible. The talented person lived constantly in fear of being taken from home into Russia to use his talents there.” Professor Pulvari determined to start a new life “where freedom is an inherent part of citizenship.” He was told he could never get a passport. He had lived through violence of street fighting which had caused tremendous suffering and loss. He had been told the state would pay Yugoslavs to come and learn from him. He knew he was watched — he, his wife and their three small children — ages 5, 6 and 10. In 1949, he made his way across a mined and barb-wired border. His family came separately. Reunited in Austria, their fortunes depleted, they stayed on to work. But the Russians were too near for Professor Pulvari. “I wanted a new life far away from the ties of sentiment. I didn’t think Europe would be free for a long time. Professor Pulvari submitted a half dozen research ideas to the United States Navy. One of these was accepted, and weeks later he and his family flew through a storm to land at New York’s LauGardia Field and proceed to the George Washington University in the Nation’s Capital. Dr. Kovasznay was associate professor of technical sciences at the Royal Hungarian Institute of Technology. He left Hungary in 1946 to study at Cambridge University in England where he had been awarded a British Council Scholarship. After one year in England, he was brought to the United States under the NORD contract with the George Washington University. By the time he reached the United States, a need for someone with his special abilities had been discovered at the Institute of Cooperative Research of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Dr. Kovasznay has since become a full professor of aeronautics at Hopkins. He is currently engaged in research on turbulence, especially turbulence at supersonic speeds. Under the terms of Project NORD with the George Washington University, all these gifted men, except Dr. Kovasznay, started work immediately on the University campus just three blocks from the White House and the Department of State. They worked in laboratories built into the upstairs of a remodeled yellow carriage house. A yellow rose bloomed espaliered against the outside wall. Out the windows they could see college students passing from class to class, or pausing to chat on the green lawns; or perhaps a fireman from the neighboring fire house weeding a small rose garden across the lane. In these unpretentious surroundings, several tasks were designated under Contract NORD to fit the talents of the men who had come so far to be free. Dr. Bay and his associates achieved the world’s fastest measurement of time. When Dr. Papp joined Dr. Bay, they continued together the work interrupted in Budapest — development of a coincidence counting technique. Using electron multipliers, the scientists recorded “faster and
