The Martians (group)

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This article is about the group of Hungarian scientists. For the book, see Mars trilogy.

"The Martians" was the name of a group of prominent scientists (mostly, but not exclusively physicists and mathematicians) who emigrated from Hungary to the United States in the early half of the 20th century. They included, among others, Theodore von Karmann, Leó Szilárd, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller and Paul Erdős. They received the name from a fellow Martian John von Neumann who jokingly suggested that Hungary was a front for aliens from Mars. (This is analogous to Enrico Fermi's answer to the question whether extra-terrestrial beings exist: "Of course, they are already here among us: they just call themselves Hungarians.")

[edit] History and origin of the name

During WWII, many Eastern European scientist emigrated to the United States, mostly from the Nazi Germany. Most were Jewish and several were from Budapest, and were instrumental in American scientific progress, for example developing the atomic bomb.

Since they all spoke English with a strong accent (made famous by horror actor Bela Lugosi), they were considered outsiders in American society. At the time, the Hungarian educational system was superior to the American, and the Hungarian scientists were seemingly superhuman in intellect. This led to them being christened Martians, a name which they adopted after finding it humorous.

The joke was that Hungarian scientists are actually descendants of a Martian scout force which landed in Budapest sometime in the late 1890s-early 1900s, but later departed after the planet was found unsuitable for their needs, but not before impregnating several women. These children became the Martians who migrated to America. John von Neumann used a number of facts as mock evidence to support this claim, such as the close geographic proximity of the Martian's birthplaces; the well-traceable general career, which started with an interest in chemistry, led the individual in question to German universities where they moved towards physics, at which point the Martian left Europe for America.