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The Most Famous

CHEMISTS from Hungary

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This page contains a list of the greatest Hungarian Chemists. The pantheon dataset contains 509 Chemists, 6 of which were born in Hungary. This makes Hungary the birth place of the 14th most number of Chemists behind Denmark and Belgium.

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Hungarian Chemists of all time. This list of famous Hungarian Chemists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of George de Hevesy

1. George de Hevesy (1885 - 1966)

With an HPI of 65.78, George de Hevesy is the most famous Hungarian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 58 different languages on wikipedia.

George Charles de Hevesy (born György Bischitz; Hungarian: Hevesy György Károly; German: Georg Karl von Hevesy; 1 August 1885 – 5 July 1966) was a Hungarian radiochemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate, recognized in 1943 for his key role in the development of radioactive tracers to study chemical processes such as in the metabolism of animals. He also co-discovered the element hafnium.

Photo of Avram Hershko

2. Avram Hershko (1937 - )

With an HPI of 63.51, Avram Hershko is the 2nd most famous Hungarian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 53 different languages.

Avram Hershko (Hebrew: אברהם הרשקו, romanized: Avraham Hershko, Hungarian: Herskó Ferenc Ábrahám; born December 31, 1937) is a Hungarian-Israeli biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004.

Photo of George Andrew Olah

3. George Andrew Olah (1927 - 2017)

With an HPI of 61.55, George Andrew Olah is the 3rd most famous Hungarian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 49 different languages.

George Andrew Olah (born Oláh András György; May 22, 1927 – March 8, 2017) was a Hungarian-American chemist. His research involved the generation and reactivity of carbocations via superacids. For this research, Olah was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994 "for his contribution to carbocation chemistry." He was also awarded the Priestley Medal, the highest honor granted by the American Chemical Society and F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the American Chemical Society in 1996.After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he emigrated to the United Kingdom, which he left for Canada in 1964, finally resettling in the United States in 1965. According to György Marx, he was one of The Martians.

Photo of Katalin Karikó

4. Katalin Karikó (1955 - )

With an HPI of 60.97, Katalin Karikó is the 4th most famous Hungarian Chemist.  Her biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Katalin "Kati" Karikó (Hungarian: Karikó Katalin, pronounced [ˈkɒrikoː ˌkɒtɒlin]; born 17 January 1955) is a Hungarian-American biochemist who specializes in ribonucleic acid (RNA)-mediated mechanisms, particularly in vitro-transcribed messenger RNA (mRNA) for protein replacement therapy. Karikó laid the scientific groundwork for mRNA vaccines, overcoming major obstacles and skepticism in the scientific community. Karikó received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2023 for her work, along with American immunologist Drew Weissman.Karikó spent more than twenty years as a poorly supported researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is an adjunct professor. Prior to winning the Nobel Prize, the University of Pennsylvania had demoted her, cut her pay, and described Karikó as "not of faculty quality"; she was never granted tenure. Karikó co-founded and was CEO of RNARx from 2006 to 2013. From 2013 to 2022, she was associated with BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals, first as a vice president and promoted to senior vice president in 2019. In 2022, she left BioNTech to devote more time to research. In 2021, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Szeged in Hungary, where she has since become a professor.Karikó's work includes scientific research on RNA-mediated immune activation, resulting in the co-discovery with Drew Weissman of the nucleoside modifications that suppress the immunogenicity of RNA. This is seen as a further contribution to the therapeutic use of mRNA. Together with Weissman, she holds United States patents for the application of non-immunogenic, nucleoside-modified RNA. This technology has been licensed by BioNTech and Moderna to develop their protein replacement technologies, but it was also used for their COVID-19 vaccines.The messenger RNA-based technology developed by Karikó and the two most effective vaccines based on it, BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna, have formed the basis for the effective and successful fight against SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide and have contributed significantly to the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic. For their work, Karikó and Weissman have received numerous other awards besides the Nobel, including the Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, Time Magazine's Hero of the Year 2021, and the Tang Prize Award in Biopharmaceutical Science in 2022.

Photo of Mária Telkes

5. Mária Telkes (1900 - 1995)

With an HPI of 59.29, Mária Telkes is the 5th most famous Hungarian Chemist.  Her biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Mária Telkes (December 12, 1900 – December 2, 1995) was a Hungarian-American biophysicist and inventor who worked on solar energy technologies.She moved to the United States in 1925 to work as a biophysicist. She became an American citizen in 1937 and started work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create practical uses of solar energy in 1939.During World War II, she developed a solar distillation device, deployed at the end of the war, which saved the lives of downed airmen and torpedoed sailors. Her goal was to create a version for villagers in poor and arid regions. Telkes, often called by colleagues The Sun Queen, is considered one of the founders of solar thermal storage systems. After the war, she became an associate research professor at MIT. In the 1940s she and architect Eleanor Raymond created one of the first solar-heated houses, Dover Sun House, by storing energy each day. In 1953 they created a solar oven for people at various latitudes that could be used by children.In 1952, Telkes became the first recipient of the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award. She was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Sciences Building Research Advisory Board in 1977. Telkes registered more than 20 patents.

Photo of Michael Polanyi

6. Michael Polanyi (1891 - 1976)

With an HPI of 58.90, Michael Polanyi is the 6th most famous Hungarian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Michael Polanyi ( poh-LAN-yee; Hungarian: Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism is a false account of knowing. His wide-ranging research in physical science included chemical kinetics, x-ray diffraction, and adsorption of gases. He pioneered the theory of fibre diffraction analysis in 1921, and the dislocation theory of plastic deformation of ductile metals and other materials in 1934. He emigrated to Germany, in 1926 becoming a chemistry professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and then in 1933 to England, becoming first a chemistry professor, and then a social sciences professor at the University of Manchester. Two of his pupils won the Nobel Prize, as well as one of his children. In 1944 Polanyi was elected to the Royal Society. The contributions which Polanyi made to the social sciences include the concept of a polycentric spontaneous order and his rejection of a value neutral conception of liberty. They were developed in the context of his opposition to central planning.

Pantheon has 6 people classified as chemists born between 1885 and 1955. Of these 6, 2 (33.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living chemists include Avram Hershko and Katalin Karikó. The most famous deceased chemists include George de Hevesy, George Andrew Olah, and Mária Telkes. As of April 2022, 1 new chemists have been added to Pantheon including Katalin Karikó.

Living Chemists

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Deceased Chemists

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Newly Added Chemists (2022)

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Which Chemists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Chemists since 1700.