Editing Eugene Wigner (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:Heisenberg,W. Wigner,E. 1928.jpg|thumb|left|[[Werner Heisenberg]] and Eugene Wigner (1928)]]
Wigner Jenő Pál was born in [[Budapest]], [[Austria-Hungary]] on November 17, 1902, to middle class [[Jew]]ish parents, Elisabeth Elsa Einhorn and Antal Anton Wigner, a leather tanner. He had an older sister, Berta, known as Biri, and a younger sister Margit, known as Manci,{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=9–12}} who later married British theoretical physicist [[Paul Dirac]].{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=164–166}} He was home schooled by a professional teacher until the age of 9, when he started school at the third grade. During this period, Wigner developed an interest in mathematical problems.{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=14–15}} At the age of 11, Wigner contracted what his doctors believed to be [[tuberculosis]]. His parents sent him to live for six weeks in a [[sanatorium]] in the Austrian mountains, before the doctors concluded that the diagnosis was mistaken.{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=22–24}}

Wigner's family was Jewish, but not religiously observant, and his [[Bar Mitzvah]] was a secular one. From 1915 through 1919, he studied at the secondary grammar school called [[Fasori Gimnázium|Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium]], the school his father had attended. Religious education was compulsory, and he attended classes in [[Judaism]] taught by a rabbi.{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=33–34, 47}} A fellow student was [[János von Neumann]], who was a year behind Wigner. They both benefited from the instruction of the noted mathematics teacher [[László Rátz]].{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=49–53}} In 1919, to escape the [[Béla Kun]] [[Hungarian Soviet Republic|communist regime]], the Wigner family briefly fled to Austria, returning to [[Hungary]] after Kun's downfall.{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=40–43}} Partly as a reaction to the prominence of Jews in the Kun regime, the family converted to [[Lutheranism]].{{sfn|Szanton|1992|p=38}} Wigner explained later in his life that his family decision to convert to Lutheranism "was not at heart a religious decision but an anti-communist one".{{sfn|Szanton|1992|p=38}}

After graduating from the secondary school in 1920, Wigner enrolled at the [[Budapest University of Technology and Economics|Budapest University of Technical Sciences]], known as the ''Műegyetem''. He was not happy with the courses on offer,{{sfn|Szanton|1992|p=59}}  and in 1921 enrolled at the ''[[Technische Hochschule]] Berlin'' (now [[Technische Universität Berlin]]), where he studied [[chemical engineering]].{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=64–65}}  He also attended the Wednesday afternoon colloquia of the [[German Physical Society]]. These colloquia featured leading researchers including [[Max Planck]], [[Max von Laue]], [[Rudolf Ladenburg]], [[Werner Heisenberg]], [[Walther Nernst]], [[Wolfgang Pauli]], and [[Albert Einstein]].{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=68–75}} Wigner also met the physicist [[Leó Szilárd]], who at once became Wigner's closest friend.{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=93–94}} A third experience in Berlin was formative. Wigner worked at the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry]] (now the [[Fritz Haber Institute]]), and there he met [[Michael Polanyi]], who became, after [[László Rátz]], Wigner's greatest teacher. Polanyi supervised Wigner's [[DSc]] thesis, ''Bildung und Zerfall von Molekülen'' ("Formation and Decay of Molecules").{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=76–84}}