Janos Suranyi Erdos Award

János Surányi

Professor János Surányi was born in Budapest in 1918. He received his undergraduate degree in 1941 and his PhD in 1943. He began teaching at University of Szeged as an assistant in 1950 without pay. Since 1950 he has worked at Eötvös University Budapest, and since 1960 has held the rank of full professor. During the last four decades, he has been engaged in mathematics education and didactics, besides doing research in mathematics proper. One of his greatest merits is that after the Second World War he restarted Kozepiskolai Matematikai Lapok (KoMaL). This world famous journal which is more than 100 years old ceased to exist due to war circumstances and lay sleeping until Professor Surányi restarted it. The journal has been a very important factor in the popularization of mathematics, in particular of solving mathematical problems by high school students. János Surányi has served as editor-in-chief since 1970.

Professor Surányi receiving his award from Professor Ron Dunkley, President of WFNMC, in Tokyo on Friday 4 August, 2000.

János Surányi is very active on the extensive Hungarian competition scene, among others he has been chairman of the Kürschák competition committee for almost thirty years. He also has the great merit of publishing no fewer than 10 books, several of which are the problems of these competitions not only with solutions but also with valuable comments, first with co-authors and after the death of the co-authors, alone. These books have been translated into several languages, e.g. Russian and Japanese.

Professor Surányi receives his Award for the second time from WFNMC President Peter Taylor at the function in Budapest on Monday 9 October 2000 held to also present an Erdös Award to his countryman Istvan Reiman.

The MAA published two books in English on the earliest years (1894 to 1928) in 1963. Andy Liu is currently preparing books for the later years for publication by the MAA.

From left Peter Taylor, Istvan Reiman, János Surányi and Jozsef Pelikan, leader of the Hungarian IMO team, after the Budapest function.

Professor Surányi was also active in ICMI serving on the Executive committee of that organization. His organization of special classes is noted and some of his students from those classes are now well-known mathematicians, L. Lovasz and L Babai.