A Cultural History of Physics

About Károly Simonyi

Károly Simonyi (19162001)Károly Simonyi was born the seventh of ten children in a small village in Hungary. His talent for learning was apparent early on and a prominent relative brought him to Budapest and sponsored his education. Simonyi went on to earn degrees in engineering and law. After the tumultuous years of World War II Simonyi returned to research ultimately becoming a professor at the Budapest Technical University where he was known as an outstanding teacher. He organized the Department of Theoretical Electrical Engineering taught generations of electrical engineers and published lectures and textbooks that have been translated into many languages. Despite his accomplishments the political climate of 1960s Hungary was not a favorable one for Simonyi and his work at the university was increasingly curtailed until he ultimately lost his teaching position altogether. But even this could not keep Simonyi from his work. Though his profession was science he had always maintained an interest in the humanities and in his new circumstances he undertook a great project: to tell the story of the history of physics and the cultural philosophical and societal movements that had shaped and been shaped by its development. The book that grew out of this project published first in Hungarian then in German and now in English has been highly successful and widely read. Charles SimonyiCreation of the English edition of A Cultural History of Physics has been directed by Károlys son Charles. A successful entrepreneur Charles emigrated to the United States as a teenager and went on to become a software engineer at Xerox and at Microsoft where he oversaw the development of what would become some of Microsofts most profitable products: Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Charles is a distinguished philanthropist as well as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.