I was born in Budapest, Hungary, on July 7, 1907, and this first part of my interview with Andor Frenkel focuses on my life and work in Europe. After my elementary and secondary education I studied mathematics at the University of Budapest for two years. I went to the University of Göttingen in 1928 where I attended Max Born's lectures on quantum mechanics, which influenced me to change from mathematics to physics, and as a consequence I focused on filling the gaps in my physics background. When ready to turn to research work I followed the advice of my friend Edward Teller and spent three months in Werner Heisenberg's group at the University of Leipzig in the summer of 1930. That fall I returned to the University of Budapest, where I received my Ph.D.degree in the summer of 1932. Two months later, because I had become entangled in the illegal Communist Party, I was arrested and sentenced to fourteen months in prison. Fifteen months after my release, I joined Lev Landau's group at the Ukrainian Physical-Technical Institute in Kharkov, passed Landau's so-called theorminimum program on my second attempt, began research on the theory of liquid helium, and lost my faith in communism following Stalin's repressive measures. I obtained an exit visa through the Hungarian Legation and returned to Budapest in June 1937. That September, again with the help of my friend Edward Teller, I attended a conference in Paris where I met Fritz London and Edmond Bauer, who arranged for me a small scholarship and an association with the Langevin laboratory at the Collège de France. Four months later, in January 1938 Kapitza, and John F. Allen and A. Donald Misener reported their independent discovery of the superfluidity of helium, which London and I explored theoretically and I explained with my two-fluid theory later in 1938. Following the German invasion of France, my wife and I left Paris for Toulouse in June 1940, obtained exit visas to enter Spain and Portugal in February 1941, and boarded a Portuguese ship for New York the following month.
...MoreDescription Tisza's autobiographical account of his life.
Article Tisza, Laszlo (2009) Adventures of a Theoretical Physicist, Part II: America. Physics in Perspective (p. 120).
Article
Tisza, Laszlo;
(2009)
Adventures of a Theoretical Physicist, Part II: America
(/isis/citation/CBB000932049/)
Book
Balazs Hargittai;
István Hargittai;
(2015)
Wisdom of the Martians of Science: In Their Own Words with Commentaries
(/isis/citation/CBB739484002/)
Chapter
Dahms, Hans-Joachim;
(2002)
Appointment Politics and the Rise of Modern Theoretical Physics at Göttingen
(/isis/citation/CBB000470668/)
Article
Aubin, David;
(2008)
“The Memory of Life Itself”: Bénard's Cells and the Cinematography of Self-Organization
(/isis/citation/CBB000931144/)
Article
Tibor, Frank;
(2019)
Ungarische Wissenschaftsemigranten in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Hungarian science migrants in the first half of the 20th century)
(/isis/citation/CBB629314157/)
Chapter
Battimelli, Giovanni;
(2008)
Circulation of Ideas and Migration of Scientists: Hints from the Early Times of Nuclear Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB001023493/)
Article
Schirrmacher, Arne;
(2003)
Planting in his Neighbor's Garden: David Hilbert and Early Göttingen Quantum Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB000641699/)
Article
Hentschel, Klaus;
Rammer, Gerhard;
(2001)
Physicists at the University of Göttingen, 1945-1955
(/isis/citation/CBB000102525/)
Article
Palló, Gábor;
(2009)
Isotope Research before Isotopy: George Hevesy's Early Radioactivity Research in the Hungarian Context
(/isis/citation/CBB000931748/)
Article
Eckert, Michael;
(2008)
Turbulenz -- ein problemhistorischer Abriss
(/isis/citation/CBB000930722/)
Book
Kovács, László;
(2004)
Zemplén: The Scientist and the Teacher
(/isis/citation/CBB000641850/)
Article
Mário Bacelar Valente;
(2018)
Einstein's Redshift Derivations: Its History from 1907 to 1921
(/isis/citation/CBB185643050/)
Book
Galina Weinstein;
(2015)
Einstein's Pathway to the Special Theory of Relativity
(/isis/citation/CBB495363061/)
Book
Badino, Massimiliano;
(2010)
Il professore e il suo demone: La lunga lotta di Max Planck contro la statistica (1896--1906)
(/isis/citation/CBB001252424/)
Chapter
Seth, Suman;
(2006)
Allgemeine Physik? Max Planck und die Gemeinschaft der theoretischen Physik, 1906--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB001021526/)
Article
Dongen, Jeroen van;
(2007)
Reactionaries and Einstein's Fame: “German Scientists for the Preservation of Pure Science,” Relativity, and the Bad Nauheim Meeting
(/isis/citation/CBB000780203/)
Book
Blackmore, John T.;
Itagaki, Ryoichi;
Tanaka, Setsuko;
(2009)
Ernst Mach's Influence Spreads
(/isis/citation/CBB001023228/)
Article
Schweber, S. S.;
(2009)
Weimar Physics: Sommerfeld's Seminar and the Causality Principle
(/isis/citation/CBB000932737/)
Article
Drago, Antonino;
Esposito, Salvatore;
(2007)
Ettore Majorana's Course on Theoretical Physics: A Recent Discovery
(/isis/citation/CBB000850198/)
Article
Fergusson, Jack E.;
(2011)
The History of the Discovery of Nuclear Fission
(/isis/citation/CBB001024701/)
Be the first to comment!