Emanuel Beke

Emanuel Beke, known in Hungarian as Beke Mano, was a Hungarian mathematician, born in Papa on 24 April 1862 and died in Budapest on 27 June 1946. He specialised in differential equations, determinants and mathematical physics, and is best known for reforming the teaching of mathematics in Hungary. He took a degree in mathematics and physics at the University of Budapest in 1883 and a doctorate in 1884, taught at a secondary school in Budapest, and spent 1892 to 1893 in Goettingen on a scholarship, where he learned of Felix Klein's activity for reform of mathematics teaching and on his return became the leader of the Hungarian reformers. He was appointed professor at the University of Budapest in 1900, spoke at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome in 1908 and was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1914. In 1922 the university dismissed him over his political activity, and since 1950 the Janos Bolyai Mathematical Society has awarded a commemorative prize in his name for teaching and popularising mathematics.