“a very great impression on me.”
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Leó Szilárd
Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-born American physicist, biologist and inventor who made numerous important discoveries in nuclear physics and the biological sciences. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and patented the idea in 1936. In late 1939 he wrote the Einstein–Szilard letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb, and the…
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science · Hungarian-American physicist and inventor (1898–1964) · nuclear physicist · inventor · physicist · university teacher · science fiction writer · scientist · molecular biologist · also Leó Szilárd, Leo Szilard, Szilárd
Born 11 February 1898 · Died 30 May 1964 · Q153238
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2026· 3 entries
Public attention spiked: 4,991 Wikipedia readers in one day, 16.6× the usual 301, with 4 article edits. Editors noted: Interceptor: Reverting non-constructive edits by ~2026-42703-00
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The Scientist: Leo Szilard: The First Pugwash
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2021· 1 entry
EurekAlert!: Mann to receive Leo Szilard Lectureship Award from American Physical Society
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1999· 1 entry
Leószilárdite, mineral, reported in 2016
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1996· 1 entry
Awarded National Inventors Hall of Fame (1996).
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1974· 1 entry
Is given in his honor by the American Physical Society
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1973· 1 entry
“The sixteen faces of Leo Szilard.”
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1970· 1 entry
Leo Szilard Lectureship Award, since 1974
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1964· 15 entries
Died 1964-05-30.
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Died there in his sleep of a heart attack; when Trude awoke, she was unable to revive him
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“Science is progressing at such a rapid rate that when you make a prediction and think you are ahead of your time by 100 years you may be ahead of your time by 10 at most.”
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“In life you must often choose between getting a job done or getting credit for it. In science, the most important thing is not the ideas you have but the decision which ones you choose to pursue. If you have an idea and are not doing anything with it, why spoil someone else's fun by publishing it?”
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“It is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere. As long as there is a margin of hope, however narrow, we have no choice but to base all our actions on that margin. America and Russia have one interest in common which may override all their other interests: to be able to live with the bomb without getting into an all-out war that neither of them wants.”
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“In order to succeed it is not necessary to be much cleverer than other people. All you have to do is be one day ahead of them.”
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“The most important step in getting a job done is the recognition of the problem. Once I recognize a problem I usually can think of someone who can work it out better than I could.”
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“I'm looking for a market for wisdom.”
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“If we focus our attention on the next twenty-five years we may say that development is likely to reach some point intermediate between the first bomb detonated over Hiroshima and processes which once initiated might put an end to all life on earth. Just what intermediate point will be reached within twenty-five years no one can tell.”
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“Variant: If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them.”
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“A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify.”
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“Variant: I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.”
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“A man's clarity of judgment is never very good when you're involved, and as you grow older, and as you grow more involved, your clarity of judgment suffers.”
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“We turned the switch, saw the flashes, watched for ten minutes, then switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow.”
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“We turned the switch, we saw the flashes, we watched them for about ten minutes — and then we switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow...”
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1962· 1 entry
To deliver "the sweet voice of reason" about nuclear weapons to Congress, the White House, and the American public
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1961· 1 entry
Proposed the idea of "Mined Cities", an early example of mutually assured destruction
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1960· 4 entries
Awarded Humanist of the Year (1960).
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Awarded Albert Einstein Award (1960).
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Underwent a cobalt-60 treatment that he had designed
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Szilard was diagnosed with bladder cancer
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1959· 1 entry
Awarded Atoms for Peace Award (1959).
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1950· 2 entries
That a sufficiently big thermonuclear bomb rigged with specific but common materials, might annihilate mankind
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Weiss took up a teaching position at the University of Colorado in April 1950, and Szilard began staying with her in Denver for weeks at a time when they had never been together for more than a few days before.
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1949· 1 entry
Szilard wrote a short story titled "My Trial as a War Criminal" in which he imagined himself on trial for crimes against humanity after the United States lost a war with the Soviet Union
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1946· 1 entry
Szilard secured a research professorship at the University of Chicago that allowed him to research in biology and the social sciences
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1945· 1 entry
Wrote the Szilard petition asking president Harry S
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1942· 1 entry
When the first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved in the first nuclear reactor under viewing stands of Stagg Field and shook Fermi's hand
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1939· 3 entries
Was attended by Szilard, Teller, and Wigner, who persuaded the Army and Navy to provide $6,000 for Szilard to purchase supplies for experiments—in particular, more graphite
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It had helped to find places for over 2,500 refugee scholars
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And Ernst Ruska for the electron microscope in 1986
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1938· 1 entry
Where he worked with Enrico Fermi and Walter Zinn on means of creating a nuclear chain reaction
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1933· 3 entries
Before he had become subsumed in the quest for a nuclear chain reaction
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And after re-conducting the experiment themselves, confirmed Szilard's theory to have been correct all along
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Szilard urged his family and friends to flee Europe while they still could
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1930· 1 entry
But was already uneasy about the political situation in Europe
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1928· 1 entry
Submitted a patent application for the linear accelerator, not knowing of Gustav Ising's prior 1924 journal article and Rolf Widerøe's operational device, and in 1929 applied for one for the cyclotron
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1927· 2 entries
Before his relationship with his later wife Gertrud "Trude" Weiss, Leo Szilard's life partner in the period 1927–1934 was the kindergarten teacher and opera singer Gerda Philipsborn, who also worked as a volunteer in a Berlin asylum organization for refugee children and in 1932 moved to India to continue this work.
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Finished his habilitation and became a Privatdozent (private lecturer) in physics
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1922· 1 entry
Studied at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Doctor of Philosophy (1922).
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1919· 2 entries
And enrolled at the Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology) in Berlin-Charlottenburg
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Enrolling at Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology) in Berlin-Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), but became bored with engineering and transferred to Friedrich Wilhelm University, where he studi
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1916· 2 entries
That he had been drafted into the 5th Fortress Regiment, but he was able to continue his studies
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Won the Eötvös Prize, a national prize for mathematics
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1900· 1 entry
The family changed its surname from the German "Spitz" to the Hungarian "Szilárd", a name that means "solid" in Hungarian
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1898· 1 entry
Born 1898-02-11.
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