• journal_title：Geophysics
• Contributor：Raoul Vajk
• Publisher：Society of Exploration Geophysicists
• Date：1949-
• Format：text/html
• Language：en
• Identifier：10.1190/1.1437519
• journal_abbrev：Geophysics
• issn：0016-8033
• volume：14
• issue：1
• firstpage：6
• section：Articles

Baron Roland Eoetvoes, inventor of the torsion balance, was born one hundred years ago, on July 27, 1848, in Budapest, Hungary. His father, Joseph Eoetvoes, was a prominent author and politician, who provided young Eoetvoes (the only son among his four children) with the best possible education. He graduated from high school in Budapest and became a student of law at the University of Budapest, as this was the suitable study for a young aristocrat in those days. However, Roland Eoetvoes had a strong inclination toward natural sciences and attended also lectures on astronomy, worked in the chemical laboratory of the university, and learned mathematics privately. Finally he turned entirely to physics and mathematics.