István Cornides

Komját, December 7, 1920 – † Budapest, November 1, 1999 / experimental physicist, university teacher ; ; He was born in the Ódögös farm belonging to the Komját registry, where his father was a farm officer. He was of Spiš origin on his mother's side. He completed his elementary school education in Tardoskedd, Vágtornóc, graduated from the Benedictine high school in Komárom in 1938, then became a member of the Eötvös College and a student of mathematics and physics at the Pázmány Péter University in Budapest. From 1942, he was a colleague of György Békésy (1899–1972), a physicist who later won the Nobel Prize, at the Institute of Applied Physics. He was drafted into the military in October 1944. He was taken prisoner of war by the British in Germany. He returned home in the fall of 1946 and took up his position at the university. He organized demonstration experiments for physics teacher candidates and led a modern workshop, and organized laboratory exercises that matched the needs of chemistry training. He became involved in mass spectrometry research that began in the early 1950s. During the 1956 revolution, he was elected chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the ELTE TTK. In 1957, he was imprisoned for several months. After his release, he was excluded from higher education. Between 1957 and 1964, he was able to find a job as a mechanic-skilled worker at the Borsod Chemical Combine in Kazincbarcika. He contributed to the start-up of the plant with mass spectrometric tests. In 1964, he became the head of the Department of Physics at the Miskolc University of Heavy Industry. Between 1966 and 1985, he was a scientific associate of the Mining Research Institute and the head of the Mass Spectrometry Laboratory. From 1968 to the mid-1990s, he taught physics and physical chemistry in Hungarian at the Pedagogical College in Nitra, and then at the Konstantin University that was formed from it, and he established a Mass Spectrometry Research Group. In 1990, Eötvös Loránd University rehabilitated him and awarded him the title of honorary university professor. He primarily wrote university textbooks, but several of his theses were also published. Since 2001, the Selye János High School in Komárom has been organizing an annual Cornides István Mathematics and Physics Memorial Competition. At the end of the academic year, two students of the high school are awarded the Cornides István Scholarship. His memory is also preserved by a physics lecturer named after him at his former alma mater.