The Martians of cytometry?

Abstract

the first half of the last century a group of five Hungarianphysicists and mathematicians were termed the Martians ofScience (1). They were Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, John (von)Neumann, Eugene P. Wigner, Theodore von Karman. Thesefive really changed the world when working in Los Alamosback in the 1930’s. One of them, Neumann, was later settingthe mathematical foundations for the way our computerswork. Edward Teller developed some more of the same andStar Wars. In fact they were Jewish Hungarians, not an unim-portant detail as this was their reason for heading to theUnited States.This exemplifies, that Hungarians have had a strongstanding in physics and mathematics for decades. Are theyalso the Martians of Cytometry? I will not give a judgementbut read for yourself. In this month’s issue, an experiment (2)takes place that will not be repeated too often in the history ofthis journal. But that it has been performed has a good reason.Many of you will soon travel to Budapest where this year’s big-gest event in Cytometry will take place: the meeting of theISAC (International Society for Analytical Cytology).Hungarians did not invent cytometry, although they wereinvolved in fundamental discoveries essential for the founda-tion of our field: the aforementioned, John von Neumann (3),Dennis Gabor for inventing holography (Nobel laureate 1971),Bela Lugosi (blood sampling) and others. Furthermore, publi-cations from Hungary were and are valuable contributions toCytometry A. Between 2004 and 2006, 23 out of 326 papers(~7%) had Hungary in the authors’ address. There are onlysome 11 million Hungarians in the country (not taking allother Hungarians world-wide into account), but you couldmake similar calculations for other countries.This issue will introduce you to a very active cytometrycommunity producing high quality research on a broad spec-trum of scientific fields. Enjoy the science of this issue andenjoy your stay in Budapest.