Károly Simonyi (18 October 1916 – 9 October 2001) was a Hungarian physicist and writer. He was professor of electrical engineering at
Technical University of Budapest
Technical may refer to:
* Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle
* Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data
* Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...
and the author of the popular tabletop book ''A Cultural History of Physics'' (''A fizika kultúrtörténete'', 1978).
He is the father of
Charles Simonyi
Charles Simonyi (; hu, Simonyi Károly, ; born September 10, 1948) is a Hungarian-American software architect. He started and led Microsoft's applications group, where he built the first versions of Microsoft Office.
He co-founded and led Int ...
, a prominent computer-software executive who oversaw the creation of
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...
.
Biography
Simonyi was born the seventh of ten children in a small village in western
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
. Simonyi earned degrees respectively in
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
at the Technical University of Budapest and in
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
at the
University of Pecs. Following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, he taught electrical engineering at the
University of Sopron and in 1952 he professed at the Technical University, where he was known as an outstanding teacher and organized the Department of Theoretical Electrical Engineering.
In the 1960s he lost his professorial post due to the political climate in Hungary. He then undertook writing the story of the history of physics and the cultural, philosophical, and societal movements that had shaped and been shaped by its development.
Károly's paternal grandfather was
Sándor Simonyi-Semadam, who, as prime minister in the aftermath of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, signed the
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon (french: Traité de Trianon, hu, Trianoni békeszerződés, it, Trattato del Trianon) was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference and was signed in the Grand Trianon château in Versailles on 4 June 1920. It forma ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simonyi, Karoly
1916 births
2001 deaths
Hungarian scientists
People from Budapest
Academic staff of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics