Albert Szent-Györgyi was the first Hungarian Nobel Prize-winning scientist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1937 “for his discoveries in the field of biological combustion processes, in particular the role of vitamin C and fumaric acid catalysis”. Albert Szent-Györgyi was born in 1983 in Budapest. He received his medical degree in 1917 and a second doctorate in chemistry from the F. G. Hopking Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge in 1927. In the course of his work he successfully demonstrated that hexuronic acid, which he extracted from paprika, is identical to vitamin C. He was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1938. In 1940-41 he also held the position of Rector of the University of Szeged.
From 1940 onwards he was under constant attack in the press for his anti-fascist stance and reforms. Later, in 1942, he became a leader of the anti-fascist movement, for which he later had to emigrate.
He remained in good health and mentally and physically fresh until his late old age. He died on 22 October 1986.
Ernő Rubik graduated as an architect from the Technical University of Budapest in 1967, and later studied interior design and sculpture at the College of Applied Arts. He worked as an architectural designer until 1975, when he joined the faculty of the College of Applied Arts as an adjunct and then associate professor.
While solving a structural problem, he created the “magic cube” from twenty-six small, coloured cubes, each of which is separate, a logic game that has conquered the world. He filed his patent in 1975 and was granted it in 1977. The first Rubik’s cubes appeared in Hungary at the end of 1977, and the game immediately gained popularity, selling about a million copies by 1980. Distribution abroad began through Ideal Toy, an American company. The Rubik’s Cube quickly conquered the world, and its popularity continues to this day.
Eszter Stumpf
Source: https://www.sztnh.gov.hu/hu/magyar-feltalalok-es-talalmanyaik/eotvos-lorand
Source of imagines: szfe.hu, kepmas.hu
Main photo: Albert Szent-Györgyi