Zoltán Lajos Bay (July 24, 1900 in
Gyulavári – October 4, 1992 in
Washington, D.C.)
["Fizikai Szemle 1999/5 - Zsolt Bor: OPTICS BY HUNGARIANS" (with Zoltán Bay), József Attila University, Szeged, ]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 ...
, 199
KFKI-Hungary-Bor
/ref> was a Hungarian physicist, professor, and engineer who developed technologies, including tungsten lamps and
microwave devices. He was the leader of the second group to observe radar
Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...
echoes from the Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
( Moonbounce). From 1930, he worked at the University of Szeged as a professor of theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...
.
In 1923 at Tungsram Ltd., a research laboratory was established for improving light sources, mainly electric bulbs. The head of that laboratory was Ignác Pfeifer, whose research staff included Zoltán Bay, along with Tivadar Millner, Imre Bródy, György Szigeti, Ernő Winter, and many others.
György Szigeti worked together with Zoltán Bay on metal-vapor lamps and fluorescent light sources. They received a U.S. patent on "Electroluminescent light sources" which were made of silicon carbide; these light sources were the ancestors of light-emitting diodes ( LEDs).
In 1955, Zoltán Bay became head of the Department of Nuclear Physics in the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, called today NIST), where he measured the velocity and frequency of light by a previously unknown measurement method.["Zoltán Bay, whose name the Foundation bears" (life), Bay Zoltán Institute of Logistics and Production Engineering (Bay-Logi), Bay Zoltán Foundation for Applied Research, 1994, webpag]
BZLogi Biography at Bay Zoltán Foundation
As a result of Bay's research, the 1983 conference of the International Weights and Measures Bureau accepted, as a standard, the definition of a meter (metre)[''Resolution 1 of the 17th CGPM''](_blank)
( CGPM, 1983), retrieved from BIPM database (BIPM, n.d.) on 24 August 2008. as recommended by Zoltán Bay.
In 1998, the State of Israel recognized him as among the Righteous Among the Nations and listed his name at Yad Vashem as rescuer number 6497.[http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/hungary.pdf this is the only correct mention of Zoltán Lajos I found on Yad Vshem website]
A relative with the same name invented Bay radial speaker:BayZ
Notes
Further reading
*Nagy Ferenc 1993: Bay Zoltán pályája és példája dokumentumokban. Gyűjt., vál., szerk. Nagy Ferenc. Budapest: Better - OMIKK - Püski, 1993. Page 135.
Hungarian physicists
External links
KFKI notes on Zoltan Bay
Zoltan Bay Foundation for Applied Research
Retrotechtacular: [Zoltán Bay’s
Moon Bounce Coulometer Signal Amplifier">oltán Bay’s">Retrotechtacular: [Zoltán Bay’s
Moon Bounce Coulometer Signal Amplifier
Reflection of microwaves from the Moon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bay, Zoltan
1900 births
1992 deaths
People from Gyula
Hungarian emigrants to the United States
20th-century Hungarian inventors
Hungarian nuclear physicists
Hungarian Righteous Among the Nations
Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Academic staff of the University of Szeged
George Washington University faculty
Fellows of the American Physical Society