Joseph Kota

* Bratislava, July 26, 1906 – † Tatabánya, February 23, 1979 / mining engineer, Kossuth Prize winner ; ; His childhood spent in Nagybánya turned his interest towards mining. He received his diploma from the Faculty of Mining Engineering of the József Nádor University of Technology and Economics in Sopron (1942). He began his engineering career in the Tatabánya blasting technology laboratory. Based on the results he achieved there, he was commissioned to organize the Mine Safety Research Institute in 1951. Under his directorship, the expanded institution developed into the Mine Safety and Blasting Technology Research Institute (1955). His work is characterized by numerous inventions, e.g. millisecond blasting and the blasting machine designed for this purpose, the procedure for selecting the appropriate choke type, and the sand gun that ensures the perfect filling of boreholes. He used his results, which increased the efficiency of blasting activities, in addition to mining, in building blasting. He showed his technical ingenuity by trying to make the work of miners easier and safer by perfecting other work processes besides blasting. He further improved Davy's safety lamp and created the Kóta small loader for loading rock brought up by blasting. A street in Tatabánya was named after him. ; ; His main works: ; Millisecond Explosion, 1951, ; The Gunner, 1953, ; Basic Connections in Millisecond Explosion Effect (in German and Russian as well), 1960.