Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi was a Hungarian-British polymath who made significant contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy.
Born in Hungary, he emigrated to Germany in 1926, becoming a chemistry professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, before moving to England in 1933.
He held professorships in both chemistry and social sciences at the University of Manchester.
In 1944, he was elected to the Royal Society.
Polanyi pioneered fibre diffraction analysis in 1921 and the dislocation theory of plastic deformation in 1934.
He critically argued that positivism provides a false account of knowing, threatening humanity's greatest intellectual and cultural achievements.
