7 ms·

Hungarian perspective here: I believe there are a couple of factors at play here. First of all, most (perhaps all) of those people are Hungarian Jews, and Jew

Hungarian perspective here: I believe there are a couple of factors at play here. First of all, most (perhaps all) of those people are Hungarian Jews, and Jewish people (imho) are both very intelligent and their culture values education a lot. Hungary had a very large Jewish population at the time, so no wonder we produced so many great scientists! Second is the Hungarian language. Ede Teller specifically said his scientific achievements are thanks to the Hungarian language, and without it he could only be a high school teacher. I can find a few sources if you want, and the ones I know about might not be accurate, but for example Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who spoke 58 languages himself, said of our language: “Do you know which language, because of its constructive ability and the harmony of its rhythm, comes before all the others? The Hungarian! It seems as if the Hungarians themselves do not know the treasure of their language…”. Third Hungary at that point was a rather developed country, unlike now. Budapest metro opened after the London one, as the worlds' second. Edit: Fourth, not related to the previous 3 as not unique to Hungary, but there were probably "network effects" at play. Science does not happen in a vacuum, as Paul Erdos said for him maths is a social activity (as witnessed by his vagabond tendency to move in with his peers and work on problems while living at their house). So probably having all these great minds in related fields was a kind of a feedback loop.

anovikov 5y ago
The fact of Budapest being a rich city is not a surprising one because it was the capital of Hungary that was many times larger than today's Hungary, spreading from Split to Lemberg - to be reduced to "ethnic quarter" of Magyars after WWI. And every monarchy is a very center-leaning entity so the capital would concentrate wealth of the entire - much bigger than today - nation. It was a co-capital of Habsburg Empire on the same rights as Vienna.
- friendly_chap 5y ago
  Indeed, having its territory reduced by 73% after the war all but killed her. I mean Hungary was already on a downward trajectory after the 1526 Battle of Mohacs which she lost against the Ottomans, and that downward slope culminated in the Treaty of Trianon, which reduced the country to irrelevance ever since.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    What can I say about it? It seems we like to be on the wrong side of history…
    - leaveyou 5y ago
      And looking at the Hungarian politics and geopolitics it's like you insist on being on a collision course with the majority of your closest neighbors. The odds of anything good coming out of that for Hungary are very slim IMHO.
      - rbanffy 5y ago
        Indeed. I’d love to better understand why it’s so hard not to side with the baddies every single time. The best thing that comes out of this is that it’s easy to pinpoint the Nazis because they are the ones in power.
AQuantized 5y ago
It's interesting that Hungarian is one of the few Uralic languages in modern Europe, alongside Finnish and Estonian as the other 2 major representatives. Finland and Estonian could be argued to have enjoyed outsized success in STEM fields as well. I wonder if there could be value in learning languages with divergent roots. Most Europeans learn multiple languages, but typically they have similar roots (Indo-European) and a fair amount of crossover. There is some evidence for the weak form of linguistic relativity, the idea that language can have significant impact on cognition. Perhaps taken to the extreme, with learning many varied and highly divergent languages at a young age, it can explain some of e.g. von Neumann's brilliance.
- kaba0 5y ago
  As far as I know, even the weak form of linguistic relativity is heavily disputed. Please see my sibling comment with a well-written article on a more likely reason.
  - friendly_chap 5y ago
    Probably. But when Edward Teller himself states it, I tend to listen. Perhaps he said jokingly though.
    - growt 5y ago
      I believe it. My wife is Hungarian and I'm trying to learn the language. I'm german myself and I think german is already quite complex, but Hungarian is just nuts (or probably martian). At some points I accused my teacher that she is just making stuff up on the fly ;)
- friendly_chap 5y ago
  I do believe that is the case and I have my pet layman unscientific theories too about languages. For example I believe English not being phonetic and often times pronounciation not making any sense trains people to accept things "as is", make them get over illogical things way easier. I believe this makes a someone more prone to respect authority, which was confirmed by my years in the UK. Of course life is messy and you can never be sure. Just a toy hunch I like to think about from time to time. I wish I could see English with its original alphabet before being forced into the confines of the latin one. Apparently many sounds are misrepresented due to that.
kaba0 5y ago
For a more accurate dissection on the topic please read this already linked blog post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid... TLDR: the reason indeed has to do with Ashkenazi Jews, who are genetically more likely to have high IQ (at the price of several illness specific only to them), but also the number of them at the country and their class. The reason Martians is called out as an “anomaly”, is due to Hungary being thought of as a small country unlikely to give so many talented people to the world. But the fact is, that countries having similar percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish people had similar percentage of Nobel price winners, eg. Germany. It’s just thought of as a bigger country where it doesn’t seem as extraordinary.
- rat87 5y ago
  > Ashkenazi Jews, who are genetically more likely to have high IQ As an Ashkenazi Jew I think this theory is likely nonsense, but dangerous nonsense which can drive racism.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    Racism is always a stick. The same reasoning that would say Ashkenazis are smarter than the general population can be used to say the general population is less intelligent, or valuable. Humanity is immensely diverse and our tools to measure value are extremely flawed and unreliable. Let’s not forget there are probably many Tellers and Von Neumanns that never got to university because they couldn’t afford it and are now tending tables to pay for rent. It doesn’t make them any less valuable or talented. It just makes them less successful and visible.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Well, I did found a few studies on the topic, but would not call it having overwhelming evidence so you may be right. I couldn’t make as good a job as the linked article, but what other explanation could you give on the very real difference between the racial composition of scientific geniuses vs the “average” people (define the former as you prefer)? Because one definition (number of Nobel prize winners) will definitely wake racist explanations. The article very clearly goes into several possible explanations, rejecting most of them. It was not the particular school, nor the city, Jewish cultural heritage could have an effect but afaik not every Jewish Nobel prize winner held strictly onto religious traditions (though still, it is a standing possible explanation, especially with a strong view on the importance of education as culture doesn’t stop at religion). Being of higher class families definitely correlates with every sorts of success, but it is not specific to Jewish people. So I’m still not bought on the environment-only explanation. Of course it is never only nature or nurture for complex situations, but a more “fertile ground” for studying will amplify other nurture effects as well. I’m writing all these as a non-Jewish Hungarian though, so my thoughts are definitely not from nationalism or racism, but more from a form of awe (though I agree that positive discrimination/bias may also be problematic)
mdp2021 5y ago
> I can find a few sources if you want Yes please. Thank you in advance! > Jewish people (imho) That was presented more as an impression than a data-based evaluation, but ok - it means HN has a little tolerance for para-intellectual bursts. :) (If all impressions were heartwarming, they would constitute less of a problem. They would probably not constitute a problem at all, if the mandate was clear that one's thoughts must duly be vetted.)
- friendly_chap 5y ago
  I got blocked from posting more in this thread. Will collect them in this comment if I can edit it. I don't deny most of these lists are probably tainted by national pride, and their contents might be partially fabrications. I have tied to check them over the years and found some to be indeed true, but a good number of them evaded my google fu. Perhaps not that valuable sources, nevertheless: https://magyarmegmaradasert.hu/in-english/our-language/1632-about-the-hungarian-language https://magyarmegmaradasert.hu/in-english/our-language/1632-...
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    If you will be unable to post here, maybe you could collect some material, publish the best article on HN as a submission, and post the rest of the material in your comments there. We can check your submissions from your profile.
giorgioz 5y ago
It seems you're discriminating positively. The Jewish population in Hungary was very large at the time. Many of them were just farmers. Some of them were doctors and engineers and business-men. Those exceptional mathematicians were indeed an exception. This is not to negatively discriminate. Believing that an ethnicity has super-powers or super-flaws is a bias. You notice all the exceptions and don't notice all the other average samples that don't confirm your hypothesis. Also small sample of populations are just more likely to have extreme values. This is more because of the narrow sample. Finally on the language part, great scientists flew nazi countries from all over Europe. Only some of them were Hungarian-speaking. Enrico Fermi was from Rome, from a not particularly religious Catholic family. Enrico Fermi went to the US for better opportunities AND to protect his wife Laura whom was Jewish.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > whom was Jewish. Biased sample indeed. The brilliant scientists who had no reason to flee didn’t and it’s not surprising the reasons to flee are over represented in a sample taken from those who did. I also suspect a lot of Jewish Hungarians who fled were not brilliant scientists, just rich or talented enough to afford escaping.
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    No, you misunderstand. In 80 years before or since, these dozen or so ethnically Jewish scientists were literally the only world-leading Hungarian scientists. (Maybe I would add Eotvos and Szenty-Gyorgyi, but that’s about it…) Given that only 5% of the pre-WW2 population of Hungary was Jewish, the fact that 80% of geniuses were of Jewish parentage is highly unusual, emigration or not.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jiggawatts 5y ago
I've never heard anyone before making the claim that Hungarian in any way assists intellectual capacity. I do believe there is something to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, but not to this degree. I know that, for example, Chinese students have a greater aptitude for basic arithmetic because in Chinese the sounds for the numbers are shorter and simpler than in most languages. This makes longer numbers easier to hold in short-term memory, assisting mental arithmetic. But... that's not going to churn out award-winning theoreticians! I'm curious to know why anyone would make the claim that Hungarian is "that special" for intellectual thought. It's a bit of an odd duck of a language, sure. But not that special. To my knowledge the main beneficial property it has is that its structure makes it especially suitable for poetry. However, it shares that trait with Latin and I believe French also.
- kaba0 5y ago
  I’m not sure why you are downvoted. I’m a native speaker and I did have a phase as a teenager when I thought that language must have to do something with intellect, mostly based on some nationalistic feeling. But I’m yet to find anything that would make it that special. The only rare linguistic thing it has is double negation (we say I’ve never not eaten something instead of never eaten) - which might paradoxically help? (Due to people having to leave behind linguistic symbolism to properly do logical reasoning? But I’m entirely guessing here)
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    There was a study showing that bilingual people have a small but measurable advantage. Apparently, learning a second language helps lock in the concept that words are just arbitrary noises, accidents of history used as mere labels. I regularly have debates with people speaking only English that conflate words with the meaning of the words. E.g.: they think that because a word or phrase has a certain root or structure, it implies something about the subject that it is describing. For the same reason, being bilingual has a small positive effect for learning programming. It helps with the notion that variable names are just labels and it doesn't matter what specific sequence of letters they contain, the compiler doesn't care. Obviously, none of this is special or unique to Hungarian. Knowing any two languages would have this effect...
hpcjoe 5y ago
Not sure why you are being down voted. I am conservative jewish, and of Hungarian descent on my mother's side. Russian on my fathers. Neither parent has a Ph.D. I do, and one of 2 brothers is a DDS, other is MS in CS. Daughter is double majoring in math and physics, with now a minor in complex systems. Going to grad school next year. She's half me, half my wife (Mexican American). Conservative and orthodox jews tend to have quite a bit of familial pressure with regards to education. You are expected to go to school. Expected to excel. Expected to pursue a professional or medical career. I recall this growing up in the 1970s. My dad is an EE, with a penchant for math. My mom is more psychologically inclined. Wife has an MS in Physics, and teaches college prep high school math. Daughter started out as an Art major. I kid you not. Transitioned over to Physics in her second year. Ok, with that as the back story, a few observations. Many of my fellow jewish students, easily a majority, have gone to post graduate education, and are doctors, lawyers, scientists, and engineers. Very few have not. The familial pressure was common, and we all talked about it in our groups. I see a very similar trend with Indian and Chinese American families. Same drive to succeed, with pushes from family. Jews are not a "racial" group, we don't share locus of genes that can be used to easily identify us as such. Apart from certain families with markers for Tay-Sachs or others. Conservative and Orthodox jews do share a culture where education is seen as the pathway to success, a better life, taking care of the extended family, etc. That is, its kind of built in to our way of life. I interpret this to mean a number of things. 1) Genetics, while important, isn't the dominant feature of highly successful people. 2) Nurture, culture, society, support systems, etc. are the things that matter. Put another way, if you set low bars, you get results appropriate to setting of low bars. If you set high bars, and provide both a support system, and strong cultural motivation, you will get results appropriate to the setting of high bars. For me, the martians have always been fascinating. JvN was foremost, though Paul Erdos was always a fascinating character. I don't think genetics/religion was the deciding factor for them. I think it was their environment. If it was an aberration for this time and place, or if it was common, that environment, the support systems behind it, should be studied, and leveraged.
- golemiprague 5y ago
  Jews do share genes that can be used to easily identify, every genetic check company can do it easily. Especially Jews from the same group like Ashkenazi Jews, but also across the Jewish diaspora. One exception are the Ethiopian Jews who don't share those markers and are probably mostly converts. So genetics could be a dominant feature here although those type of things are hard to prove.

anovikov 5y ago

The fact of Budapest being a rich city is not a surprising one because it was the capital of Hungary that was many times larger than today's Hungary, spreading from Split to Lemberg - to be reduced to "ethnic quarter" of Magyars after WWI. And every monarchy is a very center-leaning entity so the capital would concentrate wealth of the entire - much bigger than today - nation. It was a co-capital of Habsburg Empire on the same rights as Vienna.

friendly_chap 5y ago
Indeed, having its territory reduced by 73% after the war all but killed her. I mean Hungary was already on a downward trajectory after the 1526 Battle of Mohacs which she lost against the Ottomans, and that downward slope culminated in the Treaty of Trianon, which reduced the country to irrelevance ever since.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  What can I say about it? It seems we like to be on the wrong side of history…
  - leaveyou 5y ago
    And looking at the Hungarian politics and geopolitics it's like you insist on being on a collision course with the majority of your closest neighbors. The odds of anything good coming out of that for Hungary are very slim IMHO.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      Indeed. I’d love to better understand why it’s so hard not to side with the baddies every single time. The best thing that comes out of this is that it’s easy to pinpoint the Nazis because they are the ones in power.

AQuantized 5y ago

It's interesting that Hungarian is one of the few Uralic languages in modern Europe, alongside Finnish and Estonian as the other 2 major representatives. Finland and Estonian could be argued to have enjoyed outsized success in STEM fields as well. I wonder if there could be value in learning languages with divergent roots. Most Europeans learn multiple languages, but typically they have similar roots (Indo-European) and a fair amount of crossover. There is some evidence for the weak form of linguistic relativity, the idea that language can have significant impact on cognition. Perhaps taken to the extreme, with learning many varied and highly divergent languages at a young age, it can explain some of e.g. von Neumann's brilliance.

kaba0 5y ago
As far as I know, even the weak form of linguistic relativity is heavily disputed. Please see my sibling comment with a well-written article on a more likely reason.
- friendly_chap 5y ago
  Probably. But when Edward Teller himself states it, I tend to listen. Perhaps he said jokingly though.
  - growt 5y ago
    I believe it. My wife is Hungarian and I'm trying to learn the language. I'm german myself and I think german is already quite complex, but Hungarian is just nuts (or probably martian). At some points I accused my teacher that she is just making stuff up on the fly ;)
friendly_chap 5y ago
I do believe that is the case and I have my pet layman unscientific theories too about languages. For example I believe English not being phonetic and often times pronounciation not making any sense trains people to accept things "as is", make them get over illogical things way easier. I believe this makes a someone more prone to respect authority, which was confirmed by my years in the UK. Of course life is messy and you can never be sure. Just a toy hunch I like to think about from time to time. I wish I could see English with its original alphabet before being forced into the confines of the latin one. Apparently many sounds are misrepresented due to that.

kaba0 5y ago

For a more accurate dissection on the topic please read this already linked blog post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid... TLDR: the reason indeed has to do with Ashkenazi Jews, who are genetically more likely to have high IQ (at the price of several illness specific only to them), but also the number of them at the country and their class. The reason Martians is called out as an “anomaly”, is due to Hungary being thought of as a small country unlikely to give so many talented people to the world. But the fact is, that countries having similar percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish people had similar percentage of Nobel price winners, eg. Germany. It’s just thought of as a bigger country where it doesn’t seem as extraordinary.

rat87 5y ago
> Ashkenazi Jews, who are genetically more likely to have high IQ As an Ashkenazi Jew I think this theory is likely nonsense, but dangerous nonsense which can drive racism.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Racism is always a stick. The same reasoning that would say Ashkenazis are smarter than the general population can be used to say the general population is less intelligent, or valuable. Humanity is immensely diverse and our tools to measure value are extremely flawed and unreliable. Let’s not forget there are probably many Tellers and Von Neumanns that never got to university because they couldn’t afford it and are now tending tables to pay for rent. It doesn’t make them any less valuable or talented. It just makes them less successful and visible.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Well, I did found a few studies on the topic, but would not call it having overwhelming evidence so you may be right. I couldn’t make as good a job as the linked article, but what other explanation could you give on the very real difference between the racial composition of scientific geniuses vs the “average” people (define the former as you prefer)? Because one definition (number of Nobel prize winners) will definitely wake racist explanations. The article very clearly goes into several possible explanations, rejecting most of them. It was not the particular school, nor the city, Jewish cultural heritage could have an effect but afaik not every Jewish Nobel prize winner held strictly onto religious traditions (though still, it is a standing possible explanation, especially with a strong view on the importance of education as culture doesn’t stop at religion). Being of higher class families definitely correlates with every sorts of success, but it is not specific to Jewish people. So I’m still not bought on the environment-only explanation. Of course it is never only nature or nurture for complex situations, but a more “fertile ground” for studying will amplify other nurture effects as well. I’m writing all these as a non-Jewish Hungarian though, so my thoughts are definitely not from nationalism or racism, but more from a form of awe (though I agree that positive discrimination/bias may also be problematic)

mdp2021 5y ago

> I can find a few sources if you want Yes please. Thank you in advance! > Jewish people (imho) That was presented more as an impression than a data-based evaluation, but ok - it means HN has a little tolerance for para-intellectual bursts. :) (If all impressions were heartwarming, they would constitute less of a problem. They would probably not constitute a problem at all, if the mandate was clear that one's thoughts must duly be vetted.)

friendly_chap 5y ago
I got blocked from posting more in this thread. Will collect them in this comment if I can edit it. I don't deny most of these lists are probably tainted by national pride, and their contents might be partially fabrications. I have tied to check them over the years and found some to be indeed true, but a good number of them evaded my google fu. Perhaps not that valuable sources, nevertheless: https://magyarmegmaradasert.hu/in-english/our-language/1632-about-the-hungarian-language https://magyarmegmaradasert.hu/in-english/our-language/1632-...
- mdp2021 5y ago
  If you will be unable to post here, maybe you could collect some material, publish the best article on HN as a submission, and post the rest of the material in your comments there. We can check your submissions from your profile.

giorgioz 5y ago

It seems you're discriminating positively. The Jewish population in Hungary was very large at the time. Many of them were just farmers. Some of them were doctors and engineers and business-men. Those exceptional mathematicians were indeed an exception. This is not to negatively discriminate. Believing that an ethnicity has super-powers or super-flaws is a bias. You notice all the exceptions and don't notice all the other average samples that don't confirm your hypothesis. Also small sample of populations are just more likely to have extreme values. This is more because of the narrow sample. Finally on the language part, great scientists flew nazi countries from all over Europe. Only some of them were Hungarian-speaking. Enrico Fermi was from Rome, from a not particularly religious Catholic family. Enrico Fermi went to the US for better opportunities AND to protect his wife Laura whom was Jewish.

rbanffy 5y ago
> whom was Jewish. Biased sample indeed. The brilliant scientists who had no reason to flee didn’t and it’s not surprising the reasons to flee are over represented in a sample taken from those who did. I also suspect a lot of Jewish Hungarians who fled were not brilliant scientists, just rich or talented enough to afford escaping.
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  No, you misunderstand. In 80 years before or since, these dozen or so ethnically Jewish scientists were literally the only world-leading Hungarian scientists. (Maybe I would add Eotvos and Szenty-Gyorgyi, but that’s about it…) Given that only 5% of the pre-WW2 population of Hungary was Jewish, the fact that 80% of geniuses were of Jewish parentage is highly unusual, emigration or not.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jiggawatts 5y ago

I've never heard anyone before making the claim that Hungarian in any way assists intellectual capacity. I do believe there is something to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, but not to this degree. I know that, for example, Chinese students have a greater aptitude for basic arithmetic because in Chinese the sounds for the numbers are shorter and simpler than in most languages. This makes longer numbers easier to hold in short-term memory, assisting mental arithmetic. But... that's not going to churn out award-winning theoreticians! I'm curious to know why anyone would make the claim that Hungarian is "that special" for intellectual thought. It's a bit of an odd duck of a language, sure. But not that special. To my knowledge the main beneficial property it has is that its structure makes it especially suitable for poetry. However, it shares that trait with Latin and I believe French also.

kaba0 5y ago
I’m not sure why you are downvoted. I’m a native speaker and I did have a phase as a teenager when I thought that language must have to do something with intellect, mostly based on some nationalistic feeling. But I’m yet to find anything that would make it that special. The only rare linguistic thing it has is double negation (we say I’ve never not eaten something instead of never eaten) - which might paradoxically help? (Due to people having to leave behind linguistic symbolism to properly do logical reasoning? But I’m entirely guessing here)
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  There was a study showing that bilingual people have a small but measurable advantage. Apparently, learning a second language helps lock in the concept that words are just arbitrary noises, accidents of history used as mere labels. I regularly have debates with people speaking only English that conflate words with the meaning of the words. E.g.: they think that because a word or phrase has a certain root or structure, it implies something about the subject that it is describing. For the same reason, being bilingual has a small positive effect for learning programming. It helps with the notion that variable names are just labels and it doesn't matter what specific sequence of letters they contain, the compiler doesn't care. Obviously, none of this is special or unique to Hungarian. Knowing any two languages would have this effect...

hpcjoe 5y ago

Not sure why you are being down voted. I am conservative jewish, and of Hungarian descent on my mother's side. Russian on my fathers. Neither parent has a Ph.D. I do, and one of 2 brothers is a DDS, other is MS in CS. Daughter is double majoring in math and physics, with now a minor in complex systems. Going to grad school next year. She's half me, half my wife (Mexican American). Conservative and orthodox jews tend to have quite a bit of familial pressure with regards to education. You are expected to go to school. Expected to excel. Expected to pursue a professional or medical career. I recall this growing up in the 1970s. My dad is an EE, with a penchant for math. My mom is more psychologically inclined. Wife has an MS in Physics, and teaches college prep high school math. Daughter started out as an Art major. I kid you not. Transitioned over to Physics in her second year. Ok, with that as the back story, a few observations. Many of my fellow jewish students, easily a majority, have gone to post graduate education, and are doctors, lawyers, scientists, and engineers. Very few have not. The familial pressure was common, and we all talked about it in our groups. I see a very similar trend with Indian and Chinese American families. Same drive to succeed, with pushes from family. Jews are not a "racial" group, we don't share locus of genes that can be used to easily identify us as such. Apart from certain families with markers for Tay-Sachs or others. Conservative and Orthodox jews do share a culture where education is seen as the pathway to success, a better life, taking care of the extended family, etc. That is, its kind of built in to our way of life. I interpret this to mean a number of things. 1) Genetics, while important, isn't the dominant feature of highly successful people. 2) Nurture, culture, society, support systems, etc. are the things that matter. Put another way, if you set low bars, you get results appropriate to setting of low bars. If you set high bars, and provide both a support system, and strong cultural motivation, you will get results appropriate to the setting of high bars. For me, the martians have always been fascinating. JvN was foremost, though Paul Erdos was always a fascinating character. I don't think genetics/religion was the deciding factor for them. I think it was their environment. If it was an aberration for this time and place, or if it was common, that environment, the support systems behind it, should be studied, and leveraged.

golemiprague 5y ago
Jews do share genes that can be used to easily identify, every genetic check company can do it easily. Especially Jews from the same group like Ashkenazi Jews, but also across the Jewish diaspora. One exception are the Ethiopian Jews who don't share those markers and are probably mostly converts. So genetics could be a dominant feature here although those type of things are hard to prove.