The Martians (group)

When The Martians (English " the Martians " ) a group was called by prominent and highly talented physicists and mathematicians in the first half of the 20th century. All Martians came from the Jewish upper classes in Budapest, had received a substantial part of their science education at German universities and had immigrated to the rise of Nazism in the United States. The Martians were counted:

  • Leo Szilard
  • Eugene Paul Wigner
  • Edward Teller
  • John von Neumann

Eugene Wigner (1963 )

Edward Teller (1958 )

Johann von Neumann (ca. 1940)

Even Theodore von Kármán was occasionally included as well. In a broader sense were occasionally also added:

Coinage

The humorous and ironic meant was coined in conversations in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, where you pursued the question of why so many of the talented scientists who work there come from Hungary. The answer was a participant, they were originally Martians who spoke Hungarian only for camouflage. The members of this group had, in fact quite astonishing parallels in their CVs. All were born in Budapest, came from Jewish families with a German cultural background, had studied at German universities and / or worked and had emigrated to the rise of Nazism to America.

For the Americans that Martians were extremely exotic phenomena from distant Europe. Most American colleagues knew Hungary only by hearsay and had only an approximate idea of ​​Budapest. It seemed hard to explain to them that from a single place in such a short time such a large number was sprung of gifted intellectually outstanding scientists. That is why it was said jokingly that members of a superior alien civilization from the planet Mars had pitched their earthly headquarters in Hungary.

John von Neumann explained the statistically improbable accumulation of so many eminent scientists from Budapest in the early 20th century against Stanisław Ulam, this would be a constellation of certain cultural factors that he could not clarify: an external pressure on the whole society of this part of Central Europe, an unconscious feeling of extreme insecurity of individuals, and the need to Exceptional creating or perish. He referred to the history of Hungary after the First World War, first with the Communist regime of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, lost in the many persons previously well-off their positions, followed by the authoritarian anti-Semitic regime of Miklós Horthy, dodging particular Jewish students abroad before, with Germany in particular was attractive to scientists and mathematicians at that time.

Literature and sources

  • Istvan Hargittai: The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press 2006, ISBN 978-0-195-17845-6
  • George Marx The voice of the Martians, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest 1997
Mathematics
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