Sir

Vaclav Smil's charming essay (Nature 409, 21; 2000) revealed the genius loci of turn-of-the-century Budapest. As he says, some of the greatest figures in twentieth-century science came from one small quarter of the city: Leo Szilard, Dennis Gabor, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann and Edward Teller were born there (along with the writer Arthur Koestler) between 1898 and 1908, shortly after Theodore von Kármán and George de Hevesy. Andrew Grove and John Kemeny were later born in the same area.

But Smil omitted mention of Szilard's brilliant explanation of how this had come about. When Enrico Fermi, wondering at the immensity of the Universe and the certainty of life on planets orbiting stars in our Galaxy, asked why no beings from outer space had arrived, Szilard responded: “They are among us, but they call themselves Hungarians.” How could one be sure? “Because they speak a language no one else can understand!”

I refer readers to The Leo Szilard Centenary Volume, edited by George Marx and published by the Eotvos Physical Society in 1998 (Fo Utca 68, Budapest H-1027, Hungary), for scientific documentation.