László Mérő (born Budapest, 11 December 1949) is a Hungarian research psychologist and

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

author. He has

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

ancestry. He is a lecturer at the Experimental Psychology Department of

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University (, ELTE, also known as ''University of Budapest'') is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in ...

and at the business school Kürt Academy. He is also a founder and leader of a software company producing computer games. One of his projects is a computer game he is developing with

Ernő Rubik Ernő Rubik (; born 13 July 1944) is a Hungarian architect and inventor, widely known for creating the Rubik's Cube (1974), Rubik's Magic, and Rubik's Snake. While Rubik became famous for inventing the Rubik's Cube and his other puzzles, m ...

, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube. He is also the leader of the Hungarian team at the

World Puzzle Championship The World Puzzle Championship (commonly abbreviated as WPC) is an annual international puzzle competition run by the World Puzzle Federation. All the puzzles in the competition are pure-logic problems based on simple principles, designed to be pla ...

. His son is

Csaba Mérő Csaba Mérő (born July 7, 1979 in Budapest, Hungary) is an amateur Go player. Biography Mérő began playing Go when he was 14. He is the son of Hungarian mathematician László Mérő. By 1996 he had already won the European Youth Go Cham ...

, an 8-time Hungarian go champion. His daughter, Vera Mérő, is a human rights activist and author. He represented

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much 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 south, Croatia and ...

in the Tenth

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious mathematical competition in the wor ...

held in Moscow in 1968, and was awarded a Bronze Medal.László Mérő's data sheet at the website of the International Mathematical Olympiad
/ref> He graduated from

with a degree in Mathematics in 1974. He spent the next ten years at the Computer and Automation Institute of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

, working on various

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the task of assigning a class to an observation based on patterns extracted from data. While similar, pattern recognition (PR) is not to be confused with pattern machines (PM) which may possess PR capabilities but their p ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

projects. Recognizing the limitations of

, he began investigating human

cognition Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

. Since 1984 he has been at the Experimental Psychology Department of Eötvös Loránd University, studying

cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...

and

psychophysics Psychophysics is the field of psychology which quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimulus (physiology), stimuli and the sensation (psychology), sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described ...

. He has written two books, ''Ways of Thinking'' (newer translation: ''Habits of Mind'') and ''Moral Calculations'', that aroused the interest of the wider, non-professional public. His books analyze the quasi-rational mechanisms of people and the nature of

rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...

in general, undermining some common beliefs about our minds' functioning. He has been publishing in

Magyar Narancs ''Magyar Narancs'' (, ''Hungarian Orange'') is a weekly Liberalism, liberal magazine with a strong satirical tone appearing on Thursdays in Hungary. It is informally referred to as Mancs (''Paw'' in English) which is a joking abbreviation of the ...

a series titled ''Are you the dance instructor here?'' (The title refers to a joke: A client enters the dancing school and asks a well-dressed man: "Are you the dance instructor here?" "Fuck no, I'm the etiquette instructor!") Several of these essays were collected in a book in 2005 (see below).

Volumes published in English

* ''Ways of Thinking : The Limits of Rational Thought and Artificial Intelligence'' (August/October 1990, hardcover: , paperback: ) ** A revised (rewritten) edition of the former: :''Habits of Mind : The Power and Limits of Rational Thought'' (February 2002, ) * ''Moral Calculations : Game Theory, Logic and Human Frailty'' (July 1998, ) A lesser known book of his is ''Rubik's Puzzles : The Ultimate Brain Teaser Book'' (March 2000, ).

Other language editions

His books (originally written in Hungarian) have been published in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Croatian. The ''Moral Calculations'' was awarded the second prize as the ''Scientific Book of the Year in Germany'' in 1999. * ''Ways of Thinking; Habits of Mind'' – ''Észjárások'' (Hungarian); ''Die Grenzen der Vernunft'' (German) * ''Moral Calculations'' – ''Mindenki másképp egyforma'' (Hungarian); ''Optimal entschieden?''; ''Die Logik der Unvernunft'' (German); ''Les aléas de la raison'' (French); ''Calcoli morali'' (Italian); ''Los azares de la razón'' (Spanish) * ''Az élő pénz'' ("The living money", ) – , only in Hungarian * ''Maga itt a tánctanár? – Pszichológia, moralitás, játék és tudomány'' ("Are You the Dance Instructor Here? – Psychology, morality, game and science", ) – a collection of articles; , only in Hungarian *''A csodák logikája – A kiszámíthatatlan tudománya'' ("Logic of Miracles: Making Sense of Rare, Really Rare, and Impossibly Rare Events", ) – Mathematical explanation of the recent phenomena of highly improbable events occurring in a large and turbulent world.

Volumes published in English

Other language editions

References

See also