Education
Polanyi's family moved from Germany to England in 1933, partly as a result of the persecution of Jews under Adolf Hitler (Polanyi's father, who converted to Catholicism, was born Jewish). During World War II, Polanyi's father sent him to Canada for three years when he was 11, so he would be safe from German bombings. After returning to England, Polanyi finished high school and attended university at Manchester, where he received his undergraduate degree in 1949 and his Ph. D. in 1952. Although his university education was focused in science, he was not convinced it was his calling after finishing high school, when he briefly considered a career as a poet. His father, Michael Polanyi, was a professor in the chemistry department during his first year of university, before transferring to a newly created position in the social studies department. Polanyi's supervisor during his graduate studies was Ernest Warhurst, a former student of his father's. After completing his Ph.D. studies, Polanyi did postdoctoral research at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Ontario from 1952 until 1954, where he worked with Edgar William Richard Steacie. From 1954 until 1956, he was a research associate at Princeton University.
Read more about this topic: John Polanyi
Famous quotes containing the word education:
““We’ll encounter opposition, won’t we, if we give women the same education that we give to men,” Socrates says to Galucon. “For then we’d have to let women ... exercise in the company of men. And we know how ridiculous that would seem.” ... Convention and habit are women’s enemies here, and reason their ally.”
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“Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we’re selling this deadly stuff anyway?”
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“... all education must be unsound which does not propose for itself some object; and the highest of all objects must be that of living a life in accordance with God’s Will.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)