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József Öveges (1895-1979)
 

József Öveges was born in 1895 in Páka, Hungary. After the death of his father he and his family moved to Győr, Hungary, where he attended the school of the Benedictine order.

In 1912 he was accepted to the Piarist teaching order. After a year of noviciate he finished his high-school years 7 and 8 at the Piarist high school in Kecskemét. He graduated from this high school in 1915 with excellent grades. As all his ancestors had been teachers for 200 years of family history, he was also preparing to be a teacher. Öveges began his University education at the University of Budapest in 1915, as a Piarist candidate teacher specializing in mathematics and physics. He chose mathematics and physics majors since he was attracted by materialist, objective, falsifiable truths.

At the time he started teaching there were no scientific books he could have used to support the education of young people. Even at the University there were no demonstrating experiments. During the first year Öveges only saw experiments at the classes of Loránd Eötvös.

He passed all his exams with the highest grades, and graduated from the University in 1919. He first taught in the Piarist high school of Szeged, later in the Piarist high schools of Tata, Vác and Budapest.

He was inspired for writing by a German language booklet of meteorology that was publishing interesting facts based on general, every day observations. His literary work includes 32 books and numerous articles and notes. Some of them have been translated to different foreign languages. His work reflects his own teaching experiences.
Along with his scientific activity, József Öveges loved sports and hiking. He taught a number of young people to swim or to ice-skate. Ice-sailing was established in Tata as a result of his activity.

Öveges taught in several schools outside the capital for twenty years, but his fame as a brilliant teacher spread around, and he was given a position in the capital. His past students circulated a number of rumours about his classes. Probably the secret of Öveges laid in simplicity. As he always explained: “The most simple is the most artistic.” He only gave excellent grades to those students, who did not need a chalk and a blackboard to solve the most complex problems, but did it with the use of their imagination. One of his most well-known students, who made a scientific carrier in the Netherlands and Germany, Dr. Károly Bászel admitted that most of his inventions were inspired by the method of Öveges. While most researchers invent innovations in a laboratory or besides the drawing table, Bászel could make experiments while he was walking in the forest, while he was in the dark, or during the nights he could not sleep, since he could simply imagine everything he required for his inventions.

After World War Two he became the professor of the University of Economy, and in 1948 he was nominated as a head of department at the College of Education. He was granted a Kossuth-prize for his activity.

When the College of Education was closed down he asked to be and was allowed to retire. This way he could spend more time on his literary work.

In 1958 the Miskolc Technical University of Heavy-Industry invited Öveges to become the head of a department. He did not accept the position for the following:
“Sadly I could not accept the honouring opportunity, because it would have interfered with my work as the »teacher of people« through my books, and shows at the television or the radio.”

In the radio Öveges held 256 lectures, and also appeared 135 times in the television with his popular series. He demonstrated his experiments in an entertaining, playful style. His experiments helped the understanding of the essence of various phenomena. During the demonstration he himself got involved enthusiastically. He believed in the effect of live speech, and the power of the teachers’ explanation. Öveges always imagined himself as one of the members of the audience and only explained what he himself would have wanted to hear. He made his presentations more colourful with the help of dramatic effects. He only demonstrated experiments that could be repeated by any members of the audience at home.
He became popular; he was called “the magician of physics”.

The first Prométheusz medallion of the Loránd Eötvös physics association (Eötvös Loránd Fizikai Társulat) was given to Öveges in 1976 for his activity for popularizing science.
Throughout his life József Öveges always helped those who were in the need, defended the persecuted and the repressed, and tried to help them even if it meant risking his own life.

He kept on working a lot even in his elderly age. He was demonstrating and experiment when he got stroke.
Öveges died on the 4th of September, 1979.

By choosing his name for one of our rooms we pay respect to his memory, and try to use his perspective:
“The goal of education is not to pass on finalized knowledge, but to make a strong base for improvement.”