Dr. Gaál Botond honlapja
A special welcome to Bolyai Conference
Debrecen, 22 August, 2008
Prof. Botond Gaál
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It may occur peculiar to many of you that I am honoured to speak after the welcoming address of László Fésüs, the rector of University of Debrecen and Lajos Kósa, the mayor of our city. Chairman Professor István Lovashas alluded to, in his introductory words, a somewhat mysterious event in relation to the foundation of a school. Well, it is this school, Debrecen Reformed College on whose behalf I intend to greet you all. I am sincerely grateful that the conference of Bolyai-Gauss-Lobacsevszkij VI is being held here at the city of Debrecen, which contributed outstandingly in the past five-hundred years to natural sciences and above all to mathematics. This very achievement owes a great deal to the College established and maintained here. I am a teologian, a professor of Systematic Theology at Debrecen Reformed Theological University that is an integral part of the aforementioned College. Please, do not be surprised. I am not only a theologian. My colleagues in Debrecen are well aware of my training, that I first obtained a degree in sciences, namely mathematics and physics at the University of Debrecen. Only then, I pursued and completed my studies in Theology. Some of my former professors of various sciences are present in the audience. So in such a capacity of being a theologian and a scientist I stand now before you. It is an honour for me to greet all of you coming from all over Europe and the USA for studying the theme of Non-Euclidean Geometry.
János Bolyai was educated at a Reformed College in Marosvásárhely, a school similar in nature and its educational goals to that of Debrecen College. These excellent Reformed schools have a special secret to share. The main Colleges were established shortly after the Reformation. Later similar institutions of education, so called ‘maternal schools’ or ’school-centers’ were established all over the country. Amongst these was the school of Bolyai, the Reformed College of Marosvásárhely which was an institute of higher education from 1718 onwards. From the Reformed Colleges a lot of students were sent abroad with scholarships to study and all professors aimed at maintaining a high level of education matching the ones across Europe. Needless to say that Marosvásárhely provided an excellent level of education, which is bolstered by the very fact that János Bolyai’s father, Farkas Bolyai was one of the professors of the College at Marosvásárhely. No wonder why his son, János became a world renowned scientist. Here, we are promted to ask what was meant by a quality of European education?
James Bowen, a cultural historian stated that during the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the universities of Western Europe became conservative, therefore, in this respect the education of modern sciences was lagging behind. An emphasis was laid on the all-encompassing classical philosophy in education rather than on science. It is observed that brilliant experts, mostly scientist made their name known outside of university stuctrures. The outer technical level, that is, the technical development due to the impact of industrial revolution and the practical realities of contemporary life had already demanded a far greater scientific knowledge during these centuries than the ones could be observed at universities. The higher educational institutions needed to develop quickly so as to bring their level of education and the demans neccesiated by the rapidly changing outer environment into harmony.
During the course of the 16th and 17th century hundrends of students travelled abroad to study at Western European universities and they saw and were amazed by the state of university education as well as their techinal achievements. Upon their return they were saddened by what awaited for them at schools in Hungary proper. The former universities were destroyed. There were only a few schools under university level and the technical equipments at hand were in a disasterous state. The new generation arrived at a crossroad when they had to make crucial decisions. They opted for establishing new schools in the hope of development. Indeed, this far-sighted decision had a great impact on the life Hungarian culture and education. They desired a new Hungary, which progressed through science and moral chastity. A professor at Sárospatak Reformed College, János Hegedűs Mikolai wrote the followings in 1648: „Behold, the Lord has commanded through his servants to establish schools in Hungary, and lo, to what a great extent poverty decreased!” It is clear from this quote that within the span of a hundred years, the impact of establishing schools for higher education was discernible.
Amongst the sciences, mathematics was in particular favour for students and professors. It was especially true for Debrecen. For a long period at primary and secondary school level, mathematics were taught from the textbooks published by the professors of Debrecen Reformed College. It was the city of Debrecen, boasting its new College, where the first textbook of mathematics was written in the Hungarian language in 1577. The next of its kind was authored by Ferenc Tolvaj Menyői in 1674, which was followed by György Maróthi’s famous Aritmetric published in 1743. This latter was in use as a textbook all over the country until 1850. It can be stated that the teaching of mathematics in Hungary was in fact directed from Debrecen. The first upper level Hungarian textbook on differential and integral calculus was written by Ferenc Kerekes in 1837, who was invited to be a professor in St. Petersburg, Russia. Both János Bolyai and his father, Farkas Bolyai were contemporaries of Ferenc Kerekes and they knew about each others’ work. Dániel Csányi, a student of Ferenc Kerekes in the 1840s was also a famous Hungarian mathematician who became a member of the Hungarian Acedemy of Sciences. Csányi was imprisoned for his participation in the War of Independence against the Hapsburgs of 1848-49. Unfortunetely due to the time spent in prison he died early.
Last year I published a book, in which I offered a detailed study of how mathematics and Christian thinking interacted and impacted one another in the past two-thousand years. I also studied the significance of János Bolyai and Nikolai Lobachevsky. They were the ones who made the great discovery of opening up the system of axioms set by Euclid. They realised that if Euclidean system of axioms is complete, independent and contradiction-free, then it offers a possiblity to know only a certain area of geometric. This observation of theirs was named a ‘closed system’ by me. Therefore, I decided to entitle my book „The Opening Up of a Closed World”. This thought became and still is extremely useful for the study of theology. We are, of course, aware of the fact that the reality of an infinitely open world became widely accepted for mathematical thinking during the course of 20th century, begun with Kurt Gödel. It also had a great impact on the development of theology.
This is the significant history of mathematics in Debrecen so deeply rooted in our education here. We still rely on and gain knowledge from these precious sources. Therefore, I permitted myself the courage with your gracious consent to greet all of you on behalf of our renowned school, which has a unique place in the history of mathematics in our national culture. I gladly extend a warm welcome to all participant of the conference to a guided tour in the Debrecen Reformed College. It is pleasure to wish you a pleasant time in Debrecen, which is one of the major strongholds of the study of mathematics in Hungary.
