Nándor Balázs (; July 7, 1926August 16, 2003) was a Hungarian-American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (from 1995).

Early life and education

Balázs attended to the Rácz private primary school and was a classmate of Janos Kemeny. Nándor Balázs received a master's degree at the University of Budapest (1948). Balázs left communist

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 1949. He received a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

(1951).

Scientific career

After receiving his PhD, Balázs spent two years (1951 and 1952) as assistant to Schroedinger at the

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) () is a statutory independent research institute in Dublin, Ireland. It was established, under the Institute For Advanced Studies Act 1940, by the government of the then Taoiseach, Éamon de Vale ...

, one year (autumn 1952 through summer 1953) as assistant to

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

in Princeton, and was associate professor of physics at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, the Capstone, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of ...

during the years 1953–56. From 1956 to 1959, he was research associate at the

Enrico Fermi Institute __NOTOC__ The Institute for Nuclear Studies was founded September 1945 as part of the University of Chicago with Samuel King Allison as director. On November 20, 1955, it was renamed The Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. The name was ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, and then became a research staff member at the Plasma Physics Laboratory at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

from 1959 to 1961.Bognár, Desi K. (ed.), ''Hungarians in America: A Biographical Directory of Professionals of Hungarian Origin in the Americas''. Philadelphia: Afi Publication, 1971, 12. In 1961 he went to the

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

. During his life, Balázs had close friendships and working collaborations with Schroedinger,

Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English mathematician and Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for bot ...

(Dirac's wife,

Margit Wigner Margit is a feminine given name, a version of Margaret. People bearing the name include: * Margit of Hungary (1175–1223), Empress consort of Isaac II Angelos, Byzantine Emperor * Saint Margit of Hungary (1242–1271), Hungarian nun and prince ...

, was Hungarian),

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian Americans, Indian-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to the scientific knowledge about the structure of stars, stellar evolution and ...

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul Wigner (, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of th ...

, and other major figures in 20th-century physics. Balázs maintained contacts in his native Hungary and occasionally brought Hungarian physicists to the US. In his collaborations with people in Budapest (notably

Béla Lukács Béla may refer to: * Béla (crater), an elongated lunar crater * Béla (given name), a common Hungarian male given name See also * Bela (disambiguation) * Belá (disambiguation) * Bělá (disambiguation) Bělá may refer to: Places in the Cze ...

and

József Zimányi József () is a Hungarian masculine given name. It is the Hungarian name equivalent to Joseph. Notable people bearing this name include: * József Bihari (1901–1981), Hungarian actor * József Bihari (1908–1997), Hungarian linguist * Józ ...

), he dealt with relativistic heavy-ion collisions and thus provided a connection between Stony Brook (a home of RHIC theory) and Hungary. Papers: Effect of a gravitational field, due to a rotating body, on the plane of polarization of an electromagnetic wave. Phys. Rev. 110, 236–239 (1958) EINSTEIN: Theory of Relativity. Gillispie (ed.) Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. IV, 319-332 (1971)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balazs, Nandor 1926 births 2003 deaths 20th-century Hungarian inventors Hungarian emigrants to the United States Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Hungarian nuclear physicists American nuclear physicists People from Pest, Hungary University of Chicago faculty University of Amsterdam alumni