Lev Davidovich Landau

Lev Davidovich Landau (Russian language: Ле́в Дави́дович Ланда́у; born January 22, 1908 – died April 1, 1968) was a prominent Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. His accomplishments include the co-discovery of the density matrix method in quantum mechanics, the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second order phase transitions, the Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, and the two-component theory of neutrinos. He received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity that accounts for the properties of liquid helium II at a temperature below 2.17 K (−270.98 °C).

Landau was born on January 22, 1908 to a Jewish family in Baku, in what was then the Russian Empire. Landau's father was an engineer with local oil industry and mother was a doctor. Recognized very early as a child prodigy in mathematics, Landau was quoted as saying in later life that he scarcely remembered a time when he was not familiar with calculus. Landau graduated at 13 from gymnasium. His parents regarded him too young to attend university, so for a year he attended the Baku Economical Technicum. In 1922, at age 14, he matriculated at Baku State University, studying at two departments simultaneously: the department of Physics and Mathematics, and the department of Chemistry. Subsequently he ceased studying chemistry, but remained interested in the field throughout his life.

In 1924, he moved to the main centre of Soviet physics at the time: the Physics Department of Leningrad State University. In Leningrad, he first made the acquaintance of genuine theoretical physics and dedicated himself fully to its study, graduating in 1927. Landau subsequently enrolled for post-graduate study at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute, and at 21, received a doctorate. Landau got his first chance to travel abroad in 1929, on a Soviet government traveling fellowship supplemented by a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship.

After brief stays in Göttingen and Leipzig, he went to Copenhagen to work at Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics. After the visit, Landau always considered himself a pupil of Niels Bohr and Landau's approach to physics was greatly influenced by Bohr. After his stay in Copenhagen, he visited Cambridge and Zürich before returning to the Soviet Union. Between 1932 and 1937 he headed the department of theoretical physics at the Kharkov Polytechnical Institute.

On January 7, 1962, Landau's car collided with an oncoming truck. He was severely injured and spent two months in a coma. Although Landau recovered in many ways, his scientific creativity was destroyed, and he never returned fully to scientific work. His injuries prevented him from accepting the 1962 Nobel Prize for physics in person.

In 1965 former students and coworkers of Landau founded the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, located in the town of Chernogolovka near Moscow, and headed for the following three decades by Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov.

Landau died on April 1, 1968, aged 60, from complications of the injuries from the accident. He was buried at Novodevichy cemetery.

The minor planet 2142 Landau discovered in 1972 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh is named in his honor. The lunar crater Landau is named in his honor.

Lev Davidovics Landau 1908. január 22-én született Landau Bakuban. Az igen kivételes matematikai képességű gyermek, már 13 éves korában tudott integrálni és differenciálni, és ekkor már be is fejezte a középiskolát. Ezt követően fiatal kora miatt nem mehetett azonnal az egyetemre, ezért egy évig közgazdasági tanulmányokat folytatott egy technikum jellegű iskolába. 1922-ben iratkozott be a bakui egyetemre, ahol egyszerre két karon - kémiai és fizikai - tanult. 2 év múlva átiratkozott a leningrádi egyetem fizikai tagozatára. (A moszkvai egyetem mellett ez volt Oroszország vezető felsőfokú tanintézete.)1926-ban publikálta az első tudományos dolgozatát "A kétatomos molekulák spektrumának elméletéhez " címmel. Ez a dolgozat, melyet tizennyolc éves korában készített, már érett tudósra vall.

1927-ben írt következő dolgozata már a kvantummechanika problémájához kapcsolódott. Ugyanebben az évben fejezte be az egyetemet, de ekkor már mint "létszámfeletti aspiráns" beosztásban kutatott. 1929-ben külföldre utazott és másfél évet töltött Dániában, Niels Bohrnál, ki nagymértékben hozzájárult ahhoz, hogy a későbbiekben Landau megalapítsa a nagy elméleti fizikai iskolát hazájában. Egy életre szóló barátság fűzte össze a két kutatót.

Chandrasekhartól függetlenül meghatározza a Chandrasekhar- korlátot. Ezt 2,5 naptömegnek számolja ki, a mai 1,44-dal szemben. A neutron felfedezése után azonnal rájön, hogy a kiszámolt fehér törpe alatti állapot a neutroncsillagnak felel meg.

1931-ben tért vissza Landau Leningrádba a Fizikai - Technikai Intézetbe. 1932-től öt éven át a harkovi intézetben dolgozik, amelynek fő témaköre a szilárdtestek és az alacsony hőmérsékletek fizikája volt. Itt erősödött meg tudományos és oktatási tevékenysége. Ő vezeti az elméleti fizikai tanszéket, a Mechanikai - Gépszerkesztő Intézet fizikai-mechanikai fakultásán és 1935-től az általános fizikai tanszéket a harkovi egyetemen. Landau és tanítványainak munkái - a másodrendű fázisátmenetek elmélete, a töltött részecskék kinetikai egyenlete, közbenső állapotok elmélete a szupravezetésben stb. - ezekben az években Harkovot Szovjetunió elméleti fizikai központjává tették.

1937-ben Moszkvába költözött, ahol már nagyon várták a Fizikai Problémák Intézetébe (FPI). Landau itt dolgozott élete végéig. Itt adja meg a szuperfolyékonyság elméleti magyarázatát. A II. világháború idején az FPI-t áttelepítették Kazanyba, de 1945-től Moszkvába visszatelepítve folytatta a munkáját, haláláig az intézet területén lakott.

1962. január 12-én Landaut autóbaleset érte, hat hétig feküdt eszméletlenül. Miután visszanyerte eszméletét szellemi képességei igen lassan álltak helyre, alkotó tudományos munkát már nem tudott többé végezni. Az utolsó hat évben csak formálisan számított az FPI elméleti részlege vezetőjének. Fizikai állapota sem állt helyre teljesen soha többé. Ebben az évben kap Nobel-díjat "a kondenzált állapotokra vonatkozó úttörő elméletéért, különös tekintettel a folyékony héliumra". 1968. április 1.-én hunyt el egy súlyosabb operációt követően. 1972-ben a tiszteletére nevezték el a 2142 Landau kisbolygót.

Sir Aurel Stein

Sir Marc Aurel Stein (26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian archaeologist, mainly concerned with exploring ancient Central Asia. He was also a professor at various Indian universities.

Stein was born in Budapest into a Jewish family. His parents had him and his brother, Ernst Eduard, baptised as Lutherans, while his parents and sisters remained Jews (a common way at the time to increase the chance of one's sons being successful). He later became a British citizen and made his famous expeditions with British sponsorship.

Stein was influenced by Sven Hedin's 1898 work, Through Asia. He made four major expeditions to Central Asia—in 1900, 1906-8, 1913-16 and 1930. One of his significant finds during his first journey during 1900-1901 was the Taklamakan Desert oasis of Dandan Oilik where he was able to uncover a number of relics. During his third expedition 1913-16, he excavated at Khara-Khoto.

The British Library's Stein collection of Chinese, Tibetan and Tangut manuscripts, Prakrit wooden tablets, and documents in Khotanese, Uyghur, Sogdian and Eastern Turkic is the result of his travels through central Asia during the 1920s and 1930s. Stein discovered manuscripts in the previously lost Tocharian languages of the Tarim Basin at Marin and other oasis towns, and recorded numerous archaeological sites especially in Iran and Balochistan.

Stein's greatest discovery was made at the Mogao Caves also known as "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas", near Dunhuang in 1907. It was there that he discovered the Diamond Sutra, the world's oldest printed text which has a date (corresponding to AD 868), along with 40,000 other scrolls (all removed by gradually winning the confidence of the Taoist caretaker). During 1901 Stein was responsible for exposing forgeries of Islam Akhun. During his expedition of 1906–1908 while surveying in the Kunlun Mountains of western China, Stein suffered frostbite and lost several toes on his right foot.

When he was resting from his extended journeys into Central Asia, he spent most of his time living in a tent in the spectacularly beautiful alpine meadow called Gulmarg (or 'Meadow of Roses'). Except for his latest dog (which was always called "Dash"), he lived alone here. He died and is buried in Kabul.

The art objects he collected are divided between the British Museum, the British Library, the Srinagar Museum, and the National Museum, New Delhi. His collection is important for the study of the history of Central Asia and the art and literature of Buddhism.

Stein, as well as other contemporary explorers Sven Hedin, Sir Francis Younghusband and Nikolai Przhevalsky, were active players in the British-Russian struggle for influence in Central Asia, the so-called Great Game. Their explorations were supported as they explored the remaining "blank spots" on the maps, providing valuable information.

Stein Aurél (Sir Marc Aurel Stein) (Pest, 1862. november 26. – Kabul, 1943. október 28.) magyar származású Kelet-kutató, az MTA külső tagja, aki brit alattvalóként lett világhírű. Keller András nagy-britanniai magyar fizikokémikus, polimerfizikus nagybátyja.

Pest-Budán született zsidó családban, iskoláit Budapesten és Németország különböző egyetemein végezte. 21 évesen bölcsészdoktor lett és Angliában folytatta tanulmányait, Londonban, Oxfordban és Cambridge-ben. 1886-ban utazott először Indiába, ahol a brit adminisztrációban dolgozott, illetve később több indiai egyetemen tanított.

1900 és 1931 között négy nagy jelentőségű expedíciót vezetett Belső-Ázsiába. Az általa gyűjtött kéziratok és régészeti tárgyak jelentős része a British Museumba került.

Első expedícióján, 1900-1901-ben térképészeti (háromszögelési) munka mellett a Takla-Makán sivatag déli peremén elhelyezkedő romvárosokat tárta fel. Erre a neves svéd kutató, Sven Hedin inspirálta. Második expedíciója, 1906-1908-ban már a Góbi sivatagba vezetett, illetve a Takla-Makán északi térségébe. Ekkor talált a dunhuangi Ezer Buddha Barlangtemplomokban hatalmas kéziratgyűjteményt. Harmadik útja, 1913-1916-ban a korábbi célpontok mellett Kelet-Iránba vezetett. Negyedik útja 1930-ban már nem volt igazán sikeres, mert a megváltozott politikai helyzetben már nem kutathatott, illetve utazgathatott kínai területeken.

1943-ban Afganisztánban, Kabulban halt meg, ahol a helyi temetőben van a sírja.

Jan Fischer

Jan Fischer (born 2 January 1951) is the Prime Minister of the caretaker government of Czech Republic since 8 May 2009. A lifelong statistician, he was previously the president of the Czech Statistical Office since April 2003.

Jan Fischer was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His father, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences specializing in mathematical and statistical applications in genetics, selective growing and medicine, was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. His mother was also a statistician.

Fischer graduated from the University of Economics, Prague in 1974 in statistics and econometrics. He completed postgraduate studies there in 1985, earning his Candidate of Sciences degree in economic statistics. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1980 till the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989.

Jan Fischer is married for the second time to his former secretary and has 3 children. His eldest son Jakub (*1978) is an Associate Professor of statistics and vice-dean at the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics of the University of Economics, Prague.

Immediately after graduation, Fischer joined the Federal Statistical Office. In 1990 he became its vice-chairman and held this position until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, becoming the first vice-president of the newly established Czech Statistical Office. Since the beginning of the 1990s he led the team tallying the elections in the Czech Republic results. He appeared to be groomed to replace the long-time president Edvard Outrata who retired in August 1999; however the Social-Democratic government brought in an outsider Marie Bohatá from the academia. She fired Fischer in September 2000, whereupon he became Production Director of Taylor Nelson Sofres Factum. In 2001 he participated in a International Monetary Fund mission exploring possibilities of establishing a statistical bureau in East Timor. Since March 2002 he was a chief of research institutes at the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics of the University of Economics, Prague. After Bohatá resigned due to a scandal with a huge error in foreign trade bilance, Fischer was appointed president of the Czech Statistical Office on 24 April 2003.

He is a member of the Czech Statistical Society, the International Statistical Institute, the Scientific Council and Board of Trustees and a Scientific Board of the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem.

After the vote of no confidence of Mirek Topolánek's right-center government in March 2009, in the middle of Czech Presidency of the European Union, Fischer was proposed to be the Prime Minister in April. His government, nominated by both the Czech major parties (Topolánek's Civic Democratic Party and Czech Social Democratic Party) was inaugurated on 8 May 2009 on the understanding that the early election would be in October; however unexpected development in the Constitutional Court and House of Deputies postponed them to May 2010. Fischer decided to remain in the government, where he proved very popular, until then although the parties offered him a post in the European Commission.

Jan Fischer (Prága, 1951. január 2. –) politikus, Csehország kijelölt miniszterelnöke 2009. április 9. óta. Ezt megelőzően a Cseh Statisztikai Hivatal elnöke volt 2003-tól.

Édesapja, aki túlélte a Holocaustot, matematikus, statisztikus és a Cseh Tudományos Akadémia tudományos munkatársa volt.

Jan 1974-ben fejezte be tanulmányait a prágai Közgazdasági Egyetemen. Ezt követően a csehszlovák Szövetségi Statisztikai Hivatalban dolgozott, ezen belül a nyolcvanas évek elején a Szociális és Gazdasági Információk Kutatóintézetében volt kutató. 1985-ben a közgazdasági statisztika területén kandidátusi címet szerzett. 1980 és 1989 között tagja volt Csehszlovákia Kommunista Pártjának.

A 90-es évek elejétől a parlamenti és önkormányzati választások eredményeit feldolgozó munkacsoportot vezette. Ugyanebben az évben a szövetségi statisztikai hivatal alelnöke lett, 1993-tól pedig már a CSU alelnöke volt. Feladatai közé tartozott a kapcsolattartás az EU statisztikai hivatalával, az Eurostattal is.

2001-ben az Nemzetközi Valutaalap kiküldetésében a statisztikai szolgálat létrehozásának lehetőségét vizsgálta Kelet-Timorban.

Mirek Topolánek kormányának összeomlása, a parlamenti bizalmatlansági szavazás elvesztése után Václav Klaus köztársasági elnök Fischert javasolta miniszterelnöknek az októberre előirányzott parlamenti választásokig. Jan Fischer 2009. május 8-án felállította az új cseh kormányt.

Számos tekintélyes tudományos intézmény tagja, köztük a prágai Közgazdasági Egyetem tudományos és igazgatótanácsának, a Cseh Statisztikai Társaságnak, a Nemzetközi Statisztikai Intézetnek (ISI), valamint az Ústí nad Labem-i Egyetem tudományos tanácsának.

Második házasságában él, három gyermek édesapja.

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (15 July 1892 – 27 September 1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist philosopher-sociologist, literary critic, translator and essayist. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His Marxism was more influenced by Bertolt Brecht, who had developed his own critical aesthetics, which asked for the emotional distancing of the spectator (Verfremdungseffekt). An important earlier influence and friend was Gershom Scholem, who founded the modern, academic study of the Kabbalah and of Jewish mysticism. Over the last half-century the regard for his work and its influence have risen dramatically, making Benjamin one of the most important twentieth century thinkers about literature and about modern aesthetic experience. As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combined ideas drawn from historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism in a body of work which was a novel contribution to Western Marxism and aesthetic theory. As a literary scholar, he wrote his most famous essays on Charles Baudelaire, he translated the Tableaux Parisiens edition of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal as well as Proust's In Search of Lost Time. His work is widely cited in academic and literary studies, in particular his essays The Task of the Translator and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Influenced by Bachofen, Benjamin gave the name "auratic perception" to the aesthetic faculty through which civilization would recover a lost appreciation of myth.

Walter Benjamin and his younger siblings Georg (1895–1942) and Dora (1901–1946) were born and raised in a wealthy Jewish household in Berlin. The father, Emil, was a banker in Paris and subsequently moved to Berlin where he became an antiques trader and married Pauline Schönflies. In 1902, ten-year-old Walter was enrolled in Kaiser Friedrich school in Charlottenburg, concluding his secondary studies ten years later. The boy's health was fragile and, in 1905, his parents sent him to a country boarding school in Thuringia, where he spent two years. In 1907, upon his return to Berlin, he resumed studies at Kaiser Friedrich.

In 1912, at the age of twenty, he enrolled at the University of Freiburg, but at the end of the summer semester returned again to Berlin and enrolled at the Humboldt University of Berlin to continue his studies of philosophy. Elected president of the students' association, Freie Studentenschaft, he devoted his time to writing essays arguing for the need of educational and general cultural change. Failing to be re-elected, he once again turned his attention to his studies in Freiburg, paying particular attention to the lectures of Heinrich Rickert. During this period, he also visited Paris and parts of Italy.

In 1914, as World War I pitted Germany against France, Benjamin began translating with great care and interest the French poet Charles Baudelaire. The following year he moved to Munich, continuing his studies at the University of Munich (aka LMU), where he met Rainer Maria Rilke and Gershom Scholem, the latter of whom would become a lifelong friend. The same year he wrote a paper on the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin.

In 1917 he transferred to the University of Bern where he met Ernst Bloch and married Dora Sophie Pollak (née Kellner) (1890–1964), with whom he had a son, Stefan Rafael (1918–1972). In 1919 Benjamin earned his Ph.D. cum laude with the essay Begriff der Kunstkritik in der Deutschen Romantik [The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism]. Beset with financial problems, he returned with his wife to Berlin, to live with his parents and, in 1921, published Kritik der Gewalt ["Critique of Violence"].

In 1923, as the Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School) was being founded, he published Charles Baudelaire, Tableaux Parisiens. He also became acquainted with Theodor Adorno and befriended Georg Lukács, whose The Theory of the Novel, published in 1920, strongly influenced him. The postwar inflation in the Weimar Republic caused his father to have serious difficulty in continuing to give financial support. At the end of 1923 his best friend, Gershom Scholem, immigrated to what would later become the state of Israel, but was at the time the British Mandate of Palestine and, over the succeeding years, tried to persuade Benjamin to join him.

In 1924, Benjamin's paper, "Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften" "Goethe's Elective Affinities" was published by Hugo von Hoffmansthal in the magazine Neue Deutsche Beiträge. Together with Ernst Bloch, Benjamin spent a few months on the Italian island of Capri, writing his habilitation thesis, on The Origin of German Tragic Drama. There he read, on Bloch's suggestion, Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness, and first met Asja Lācis, a Bolshevik Latvian actress living in Moscow. She would become an important and lasting intellectual and erotic influence on him.

A year later, The Origin of German Tragic Drama was rejected by Frankfurt University, effectively closing the door to an academic career for the 33-year-old scholar. Working with Franz Hessel (1880–1941), he translated the first volumes of Marcel Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu [In Search of Lost Time]. The next year he began writing for the German newspapers Frankfurter Zeitung and Die Literarische Welt, enabling him to afford living several months in Paris. In December 1926, the year of his father's death, he made a trip to Moscow to meet Asja Lācis, and found her in a sanatorium, suffering from an illness.

In 1927, he started work on Das Passagen-Werk [The Arcades Project], his monumental and unfinished study which he continued to work on until his death. The same year in Berlin he saw Gershom Scholem in person for the last time, and considered moving to Palestine. In 1928 he separated from his wife, Dora (they were divorced two years later), and published Einbahnstraße [One-Way Street] and Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels [The Origin of German Tragic Drama]. In Berlin, the following year, Asja Lācis, at the time, Bertolt Brecht's assistant, introduced the two authors. Also that year, he briefly attempted an academic career as an instructor at the University of Heidelberg.

In 1932, during the turmoil preceding Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor, Walter Benjamin left Germany to spend a few months on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Then he moved to Nice, where he considered committing suicide. With the Reichstag fire, in 1933, as Hitler assumed power and started the persecution of the Jews, Benjamin sought shelter in Svendborg, at Bertold Brecht's, and Sanremo, where his ex-wife lived, before moving to Paris.

As his financial situation deteriorated, he collaborated with Max Horkheimer and received some funds from the Institut für Sozialforschung [Institute for Social Research] which, by this time, had relocated to New York. He met other German artists and intellectuals who became refugees in Paris and befriended Hannah Arendt, Hermann Hesse and Kurt Weill. In 1936, L'Œuvre d'Art à l'Époque de sa Reproductibilité Technique ["The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"] was first published in French by Max Horkheimer in the Institute for Social Research's journal, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung.

In 1937 Benjamin worked on Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire [The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire], met Georges Bataille and joined the College of Sociology. In 1938 he paid a last visit to Bertolt Brecht, now in Danish exile. Within a few months, Hitler stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and Benjamin, now stateless, was incarcerated by the French authorities for three months in a camp near Nevers.

Returning to Paris in January 1940, he wrote his Über den Begriff der Geschichte [Theses on the Philosophy of History]. In June, as the Wehrmacht broke through the French defenses, Benjamin fled to Lourdes with his sister, one day before the Germans entered Paris. In August, he obtained a visa to the United States, which had been negotiated by Max Horkheimer. Attempting to elude the Gestapo, Benjamin planned to depart for America from neutral Portugal, which he had hoped to reach via Spain. Through the nearly seven decades that followed, researchers have been unable to establish a clear timeline of the succeeding events, which culminated in his death. Sketchy and incomplete historical records seem to indicate that he reached Portbou, a French-Spanish border town in the Pyrenees, but the group of Jewish refugees he joined was intercepted by the Spanish Police and Benjamin apparently committed suicide by taking an overdose of a form of morphine.

Walter Benjamin (1892. július 15., Berlin, Németország – 1940. szeptember 26., Portbou, Spanyolország) német filozófus, irodalomkritikus, esszéista. Művei utóélete révén a 20. század egyik legnagyobb hatású művészetteoretikusa.

Jómódú zsidó családban született. Kereskedő apjával folyamatos a konfliktusa. A húszas évek derekán Goethe Vonzások és választások című regényéről készült habilitációs írását a frankfurti irodalomtörténész bizottság „homályosnak” találja és elutasítja, így nem sikerül akadémiai pályára lépnie.

A harmincas évek közepétől barátja, Theodor W. Adorno segítségével több írása megjelenik a Frankfurti Iskola társadalomfilozófiai lapjában, a Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung-ban. Francia írókról, nyelvszociológiáról, a műgyűjtő személyiségről, a műalkotás technikai reprodukálhatóságának kihatásairól ír. Benjamin „szabad kritikus” és „alkalmi fordító”. Ismeretségi körén túl alig élvez figyelmet és megbecsülést. Angelus Novus című lapja nem tud elindulni. 1926-ban a Szovjetunióba látogat, meglátogatja szerelmét, Aszja Lacisz lett kommunista színésznőt. Utazásáról naplót vezet.

Hitler hatalomra jutása után Franciaországba emigrál. Párizsban, a Bibliotheque Nationale-ban írja nagyszabású fő művét, a Passzázsok-at (Passagen-Werk), amely végül töredékes maradt. Többször felkeresi barátját, Bertolt Brechtet dániai száműzetésében. 1940-ben az előrenyomuló német csapatok elől Spanyolországon keresztül próbál Amerikába jutni, de azután a Pireneusokban lévő határátkelőnél tisztázatlan körülmények között öngyilkos lesz.

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov (born as Garry Kimovich Weinstein[1] on April 13, 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union; now Azerbaijan) is a Russian chess grandmaster widely regarded to have been the greatest player of all time, former World Chess Champion, writer and political activist.
Kasparov became the youngest ever World Chess Champion in 1985. He held the official FIDE world title until 1993, when a dispute with FIDE led him to set up a rival organization, the Professional Chess Association. He continued to hold the "Classical" World Chess Championship until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. He is also widely known for being the first world chess champion to lose a match to a computer, when he lost to Deep Blue in 1997.
Kasparov's ratings achievements include being rated world #1 according to Elo rating almost continuously from 1986 until his retirement in 2005 and holding the all-time highest rating of 2851. He also holds records for consecutive tournament victories and Chess Oscars.
Kasparov announced his retirement from professional chess on March 10, 2005, to devote his time to politics and writing. He formed the United Civil Front movement, and joined as a member of The Other Russia, a coalition opposing the administration of Vladimir Putin. He was a candidate for the 2008 Russian presidential race, but later withdrew. Widely regarded in the West as a symbol of opposition to Putin, Kasparov's support in Russia is low.

Garry Kasparov was born Garry Weinstein (Russian: Гарри Вайнштейн) in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR to a Armenian mother and Jewish father. He first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution.[4] His father died of leukemia when he was seven years old.[5] At the age of twelve, he adopted his mother's Armenian surname, Kasparyan, modifying it to a more Russified version, Kasparov. [6]
From age 7, Kasparov attended the Young Pioneer Palace and, at 10 began training at Mikhail Botvinnik's chess school under noted coach Vladimir Makogonov. Makogonov helped develop Kasparov's positional skills and taught him to play the Caro-Kann Defence and the Tartakower System of the Queen's Gambit Declined.[7] Kasparov won the Soviet Junior Championship in Tbilisi in 1976, scoring 7 points of 9, at age 13. He repeated the feat the following year, winning with a score of 8½ of 9. He was being trained by Alexander Sakharov during this time.
In 1978, Kasparov participated in the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk. He had been invited as an exception but took first place and became a chess master. Kasparov has repeatedly said that this event was a turning point in his life, and that it convinced him to choose chess as his career. "I will remember the Sokolsky Memorial as long as I live", he wrote. He has also said that after the victory, he thought he had a very good shot at the World Championship.[8]
He first qualified for the Soviet Chess Championship at age 15 in 1978, the youngest ever player at that level. He won the 64-player Swiss system tournament at Daugavpils over tiebreak from Igor V. Ivanov, to capture the sole qualifying place.
Kasparov rose quickly through the FIDE (World Chess Federation) rankings. Starting with an oversight by the Russian Chess Federation, he participated in a Grandmaster tournament in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia, in 1979 while still unrated (the federation thought it was a junior tournament). He won this high-class tournament, emerging with a provisional rating of 2595, enough to catapult him to the top group of chess players (at the time, number 3 in the World, ex-champion Boris Spassky had 2630, while World Champion Anatoly Karpov 2690–2700). The next year, 1980, he won the World Junior Chess Championship in Dortmund, West Germany. Later that year, he made his debut as second reserve for the Soviet Union at the Chess Olympiad at La Valletta, Malta, and became a Grandmaster.

As a teenager, Kasparov twice tied for first place in the USSR Chess Championship, in 1980–81 and 1981–82. His first win in a superclass-level international tournament was scored at Bugojno 1982. He earned a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonal tournament, which he won, to qualify for the Candidates Tournament.[9] At age 19, he was the youngest Candidate since Bobby Fischer, who was 15 when he qualified in 1958. At this stage, he was already the #2-rated player in the world, trailing only World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov on the January 1983 list.
Kasparov's first (quarter-final) Candidates match was against Alexander Beliavsky, whom Kasparov defeated 6–3 (four wins, one loss).[10] Politics threatened Kasparov's semi-final against Viktor Korchnoi, which was scheduled to be played in Pasadena, California. Korchnoi had defected from the Soviet Union in 1976, and was at that time the strongest active non-Soviet player. Various political maneuvers prevented Kasparov from playing Korchnoi, and Kasparov forfeited the match. This was resolved by Korchnoi allowing the match to be replayed in London, along with the previously scheduled match between Vasily Smyslov and Zoltan Ribli. The Kasparov-Korchnoi match was put together on short notice by Raymond Keene. Kasparov lost the first game but won the match 7–4 (four wins, one loss).
In 1984, he won the Candidates' final 8½–4½ (four wins, no losses) against the resurgent former world champion Vasily Smyslov, at Vilnius, thus qualifying to play Anatoly Karpov for the World Championship. That year he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol.

The World Chess Championship 1984 match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov had many ups and downs, and a very controversial finish. Karpov started in very good form, and after nine games Kasparov was down 4–0 in a "first to six wins" match. Fellow players predicted he would be whitewashed 6–0 within 18 games.[citation needed]
But Kasparov dug in and battled Karpov to 17 successive draws. He lost game 27, then fought back with another series of draws until game 32, his first-ever win against the World Champion. Another 15 successive draws followed, through game 46; the previous record length for a world title match had been 34 games, the match of Jose Capablanca vs. Alexander Alekhine in 1927.
At this point Karpov, 12 years older than Kasparov, was close to exhaustion, and did not look like the player who started the match. Kasparov won games 47 and 48 to bring the scores to 5–3 in Karpov's favour. Then the match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE), and a new match was announced to start a few months later.
The termination was controversial, as both players stated that they preferred the match to continue. Announcing his decision at a press conference, Campomanes cited the health of the players, which had been strained by the length of the match, with Karpov having lost 10 kg (22 lb) during the match.[11] But Kasparov was in excellent health and extremely resentful of Campomanes' decision, asking him why he was abandoning the match if both players wanted to continue. Kasparov had won the last two games before the suspension, and some observers believed that he would go on to win despite his 5–3 deficit. He appeared to be physically stronger than his opponent, and in the later games seemed to have been playing the better chess.
The match became the first, and so far only, world championship match to be abandoned without result. Kasparov's relations with Campomanes and FIDE were greatly strained, and the feud between them eventually came to a head in 1993 with Kasparov's complete break-away from FIDE.

Kasparov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1984, and in 1987 was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol. But in 1990 he left the party, and in May took part in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia. In June 1993, he was involved in the creation of the "Choice of Russia" bloc of parties, and in 1996 he took part in the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin. In 2001 he voiced his support for the Russian television TV channel NTV.[19]
After his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparov turned to politics and created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to "work to preserve electoral democracy in Russia."[20] He has vowed to "restore democracy" to Russia by toppling the elected Russian president Vladimir Putin, of whom he is an outspoken critic.[21][22][23]
Kasparov was instrumental in setting up The Other Russia, a coalition which oppose Putin's government. The Other Russia has been boycotted by the leaders of Russia's democratic opposition parties, Yabloko and Union of Right Forces as they are concerned about its inclusion of radical nationalist and left-wing groups such as the National Bolshevik Party and former members of the Rodina party including Viktor Gerashchenko, a potential presidential candidate. But regional branches of Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces have opted to take part in the coalition. Kasparov says that leaders of these parties are controlled by the Kremlin,[24] despite the fact they are both strongly opposed to the president's policies.
On April 10, 2005, Kasparov was in Moscow at a promotional event when he was struck over the head with a chessboard he had just signed. The assailant was reported to have said "I admired you as a chess player, but you gave that up for politics" immediately before the attack.[25] Kasparov has been the subject of a number of other episodes since.

Kasparov helped organize the Saint Petersburg Dissenters' March on March 3, 2007 and The March of the Dissenters on March 24, 2007, both involving several thousand people rallying against Putin and Saint Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko's policies.[28][29] On April 14, he was briefly arrested by the Moscow police while heading for a demonstration, following warnings by the prosecution office on the eve of the march, stating that anyone participating risked being detained. He was held for some 10 hours, and then fined and released.[30]
He was summoned by FSB for questioning as a suspect in violations of Russian anti-extremism laws.[31] This law was previously applied for the conviction of Boris Stomakhin[32][33]
Speaking about Kasparov, former KGB general Oleg Kalugin has remarked: "I do not talk in details—people who knew them are all dead now because they were vocal, they were open. I am quiet. There is only one man who is vocal, and he may be in trouble: [former] world chess champion [Garry] Kasparov. He has been very outspoken in his attacks on Putin, and I believe that he is probably next on the list."[34]
In 1991, Kasparov received the Keeper of the Flame award from the Center for Security Policy (a US think tank) for his contributions in development of democracy On September 30, 2007, Kasparov entered the Russian Presidential race, receiving 379 of 498 votes at a congress held in Moscow by The Other Russia.[40]
In October 2007, Kasparov announced his intention of standing for the Russian presidency as the candidate of the "Other Russia" coalition, and vowed to fight for a "democratic and just Russia". Later that month he traveled to the United States, where he appeared on several popular television programs, which were hosted by Stephen Colbert, Wolf Blitzer, Bill Maher, and Chris Matthews.
On November 24, 2007, Kasparov and other protesters were detained by police at an Other Russia rally in Moscow. This followed an attempt by about 100 protesters to break through police lines and march on the electoral commission, which had barred Other Russia candidates from parliamentary elections.[41] He was subsequently charged with resisting arrest and organising an unauthorized protest, and given a jail sentence of five days. He was released from jail on November 29.[42]
On December 12, 2007, Kasparov announced that he had to withdraw his presidential candidacy due to inability to rent a meeting hall where at least 500 of his supporters could assemble to endorse his candidacy, as is legally required. With the deadline expiring on that date, he claimed it was impossible for him to run. Kasparov's spokeswoman accused the government of using pressure to deter anyone from renting a hall for the gathering and said that the electoral commission had rejected a proposal that separate smaller gatherings be held at the same time instead of one large gathering at a meeting hall.

Garri Kaszparov (Baku, 1963 - ) világbajnok 1985-től 2000-ig.Kezdettől fogva Karpov ellenfelének tartotta magát. Kaszparov a lehető leghamarabb akarta megfosztani Karpovot címétől. Villámgyors karriert futott be. 1980-ban ifúsági világbajnok, 1982-ben Bugojnóban, 1983-ban Nikšićben hagyta maga mögött a nemzetközi mezőnyt: a sakkvilág megismerte az új csilagot, a dinamikus sakk megtestesítőjét. Az 1983-as és 1984-es világbajnok-jelölt versenyeken meggyőző játékkal verte Beljavszkijt, majd Korcsnojt és Szmiszlovot. Aztán 1985-ben Karpov ellen 5:3-as arányú győzelmet aratott 16 döntetlen mellett, és ő lett a világ legfiatalabb sakkvilágbajnoka. Kaszparov lenyűgöző játékának alapja az, hogy nagyon sok variációt tud igen rövid idő alatt fejben tartani. Stílusa a fantázia. Botvinnik szerint Kaszparov személyesíti meg az újító, kutató sakkozót, szemben elődei racionalista, prakticista felfogásával. Napjainkban Kaszparov az a sakkozó, aki ámulatba ejti a világot romantikus, alkotó elméjével. "Személy szerint a szép, az ihletett, a művészethez közel álló sakk pártján állok, amely esztétikai élvezetet nyújt. Minden egyes játszma - potenciálisan - műalkotás, a sakktáblán remekműveket lehet alkotni."" Újat, mindig újat akar. 1993-ban kivonult a FIDE égisze alól, mérkőzéseit nélküle kívánja lebonyolítani. Ezért "cserébe" a FIDE 1993. március 27-én megfosztotta világbajnoki címétől, ő pedig a FIDE-t fosztotta meg a világbajnokság rendezésétől. 1998-ban létrehozta a Kasparovchess site-ot, amellyel szimbolikusan "meghívta" a világot: legyen a vendége site-ján, tanuljon meg sakkozni, használja ki az Internet nyújtotta lehetőségeket, melyen keresztül is lehet izgalmas csatákat vívni. Az oldal azonban rövid időt élt csak meg. Még 1999-ben kihívta a világot egy sakkjátszmára, melyet - a világ szégyenére - meg is nyert. Ez volt a Kasparov vs The World mérkőzés. Kaszparov 1999. június 21-én meglépett e4-jével kezdetét vette a mérkőzés közte és köztünk, majd közel 4 hónapos - egészen pontosan 124 napos - küzdelem után 1999. október 22-én feladtuk.Rengeteg vád érte a szervezőket, hogy a beküldött lépések közül is csak néha lépték meg azt, amire a legtöbben szavaztak, valamint, hogy az egész nem volt más, mint néhány koordinátor nagymester "sajátos küzdelme Kaszparov ellen, minden internetező szeme láttára". Kaszparov évről-évre minden versenyen, ahol csak elindult, első helyen végzett, bár sokszor beérték vagy megközelítették. Különösen egy személy: Vlagyimir Kramnyik. A kettőjük csatájából az új, 24 éves Kramnyik került ki győztesként, és lett világbajnok 2000-ben. Azóta nagyot fordult vele a világ, különösen 2003-2004 tájára. Ugyanis ezidőtájt számos játszmából vagy csak jó szerencsével vagy sehogy sem került ki győztesként. Volt idő, hogy lehetetlen volt tartani vele a lépést. Ezek az idők azonban már úgy tűnik elmúltak.

Andy Grove - Gróf András

Andrew Stephen Grove (Hungarian: Gróf András István) (born 2 September 1936) is a Hungarian-American businessman and scientist. He was one of the earliest employees of Intel Corporation and ultimately played key leadership roles in its success.

Grove was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary. Growing up, he was known to friends as "Andris". At the age of four, Andris was diagnosed with scarlet fever. The disease was nearly fatal, and while he survived, he suffered significant hearing loss as a result. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 he left his home and family under the cover of night and emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City in 1957.[1] Grove and his wife Eva were married in 1958 and raised two daughters.
Grove earned a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from the City College of New York in 1960, and earned the Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963.

Grove worked at Fairchild Semiconductor before becoming the third employee at the nascent Intel Corporation. He became Intel's president in 1979, its CEO in 1987, and its Chairman and CEO in 1997.
Grove is credited with having transformed Intel from a manufacturer of memory chips into one of the world's dominant producers of microprocessors. During his tenure as CEO, Grove oversaw a 4,500% increase in Intel's market capitalization from $18 billion to $197 billion, making it, at the time, the world's most valuable company.[2] He relinquished his CEO title in May 1998 and remained Chairman of the Board until November 2004. Grove continues his work at Intel as a senior advisor.
While Grove was, in fact, Intel's third employee, he received employee number four by clerical error. Leslie L. Vadász was hired by Andy Grove and received employee number three by virtue of the same clerical error.
Robert Noyce and Gordon E. Moore were the co-founders of Intel, along with six others who left Fairchild Semiconductor. Noyce claims to have been the catalyst of the group, and some suggest that the relaxed culture at Intel was a carryover from Noyce's style at Fairchild. Grove, on the other hand, was fiercely competitive, and he and the company became known for his guiding motto: "Only the paranoid survive". Noyce was essentially anti-competitive, even to the extent that, as Tom Wolf in "Hooking Up" points out, all spaces in the parking lot were fair game, first come, first served. This difference in styles reputedly caused some degree of friction between Noyce and Grove.
Andrew Steven Grove (Gróf András) (Budapest, 1936. szeptember 2.), az Intel társalapítója, a cég felemelkedésének egyik kulcsfigurája.
Andy Grove – Gróf András néven – 1936-ban látta meg a napvilágot Budapesten, zsidó kereskedőcsalád gyermekeként. Felsőfokú tanulmányait az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem kémikus szakán kezdte, ám 1956-ban, a forradalom leverése után az Egyesült Államokba emigrált. 1960-ban végzett vegyészmérnökként a New York-i City College-ban, majd a Berkeley Egyetemen szerzett doktorátust. 1963-tól – a PhD-fokozat megszerzését követően – a Fairchild Semiconductor kutatás-fejlesztési részlegénél 1968-ig, amikor Robert Noyce és a róla elnevezett törvényről ismertté vált Gordon Moore társaként megalapította az Intel Corporationt, amely ma a világ legnagyobb félvezetőgyártó vállalata. 1979-től a cég elnöke, 1987-től vezérigazgatója, 1997-től pedig a vállalat vezérigazgatója és igazgatótanácsának elnöke egy személyben. A vezérigazgatói posztról 1998-ban lemondott, de 2005 májusáig az igazgatótanács elnöke maradt. Azóta rangidős tanácsadóként segíti az Intel munkáját.
Grove és felesége, Éva 1958-ban házasodtak össze, két lányuk van.