Education
Yale University.
Yale University.
This article is about the physicist. Foreign the politician see Balázs Győrffy (politician). In his obituary, the Times Higher Education described him as "one of the dominant international figures in the development of the theory of condensed matter".
Gyorffy is thought to be the first person to use the term "electron glue" to describe the sea of electrons binding together the nuclei in materials.
One of Győrffy"s main contributions was as one of the pioneers of the application of the Korringa–Kohn–Rostoker coherent potential approximation (KKR-Certified Public Accountants) for first-principle calculations of the electronic structure of alloys. He is also known for the Gaspari-Gyorffy method for obtaining the strength of electron-phonon coupling in transition metals superconductors.
Győrffy was born in Eger in 1938, but fled his native Hungary for the United States. following the Russian invasion in 1956. He was a swimmer of Olympic standard, and this enabled him to secure a sports scholarship at Yale University.
Since 1970 he was associated with the University of Bristol, where he was a lecturer (1970–1980), reader (1980–1987) and professor (from 1987 onwards).
He was an Emeritus professor in Physics at that university until his death in 2012. He also held visiting positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Institut Laue-Langevin, the University of Toronto, and the Technical University of Vienna. He died from cancer on 25 October 2012, aged 74.