Oct

25

György Buzsáki is my second favorite Hungarian [after Paul Erdős]. Brain Prize winner, he is from a later cohort. One of the few neuroscientists with a good theory for the Brain, a field that was ~mostly into measuring neural responses in parts of the brain to external stimuli and then telling a story around it. A great talk by him for the interested:

Ways to think about the brain: Emergence of cognition from action | ISTA Lecture with Gyorgy Buzsaki

Oct

9

What is it with Hungarian Jewish who came to the US - so many of them achieved great things. My book shelf is full of them, Darvas (Trading), S Meisner (Acting)…..even my trading platform Interactive Brokers was founded by one (Thomas Peterffy).

Maybe a combo of rare language ??/ culture + hardship first + grid + ability to flourish in the US gave them superpower. Soros, I guess was (Jewish) Hungarian as well.

Venkatesh Medabalimi asks:

Where is my no.1 Hungarian? May I remind everyone about Paul Erdős.

Laurel Kenner offers:

An amusing book on the subject: Made in Hungary : Or Made by Hungarians, by György Bolgár.

Nils Poertner responds:

Thanks both. Found this on Erdős:

Paul Erdős: The Oddball’s Oddball

He would appear on the doorstep of fellow mathematicians without warning–a frail, disheveled, elderly man, hopped up on amphetamines and wearing a ratty raincoat–and announce, in a thick Hungarian accent, “My mind is open.” For a day, or a week or a month, the man or woman who answered the knock would have to take nonstop care of this helpless guest who couldn’t figure out how to cut a grapefruit or wash his underwear–and in return would be permitted the exhausting, exhilarating experience of following the thought processes of Paul Erdős, the most prolific and arguably the cleverest mathematician of the century.

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