Ervin Bauer
Ervin Bauer
Ervin Bauer in 1908
Born(1890-10-19)19 October 1890
Lőcse, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (today Levoča, Slovakia)
Died11 January 1938(1938-01-11) (aged 47)
Leningrad, Soviet Union
Alma materUniversity of Göttingen
Known forformulation of the basic principles of theoretical biology
Scientific career
FieldsTheoretical biology, Physiology, Pathology
InstitutionsInstitute of Experimental Medicine, Leningrad, Soviet Union

Ervin Bauer (19 October 1890, Lőcse, Hungary, Austria-Hungary – 11 January 1938, Leningrad, Soviet Union) was a Hungarian biologist. He developed the first detailed concept of theoretical biology from the standpoint of biophysics and bioenergetics.[1][2] He is also known for his work in pathology.[1] A communist, Bauer emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1925 and was murdered in the Great Purge in 1938.

Biography

Ervin Bauer was born on October 19, 1890, in a family of teachers. He was the younger brother of Béla Balázs. He studied medicine in Budapest, then worked in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, again in Germany, and finally in the USSR.[3][4] In 1920, when working in Göttingen, he formulated his concept of the sustainable non-equilibrium of the living being in an article[5] (English translation[6]) and then in his first monograph.[7][8] In 1921, Bauer moved to Prague, where, thanks to the patronage of Wilhelm Roux, he worked at the Institute of General Biology at Charles University. In 1923, Bauer moved to Berlin, where he proposed the dependence of tumour growth on the surface tension of embryonic lymph cells and lymph nodes.[3]

In 1925 Ervin Bauer moved to Soviet Union, where he worked in Moscow at the Institute of Professional Diseases named after V. Obukh, then in the Biological Institute named after K.A. Timiryazev, and at the Second Moscow Medical Institute. From 1933 Bauer lived and worked in Leningrad at the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM), where he was head of the department of general biology.[9] In 1935, Ervin Bauer published a monograph Theoretical Biology,[10][6][11] in which he described the general thermodynamic features of living systems. His writings became influential for the development of theoretical biology.[12]

Ervin Bauer's first wife was a writer Margit Kaffka (who died from Spanish flu in 1918), and his second wife was a mathematician Stefánia Szilárd. Bauer and his wife Stefánia were arrested by NKVD on 4 August 1937, and both were shot on 11 January 1938.[13] Their two children were separated and sent to orphanages.[14] Their publications were banned, and it took years before they could be reprinted.[3]

Research

Ervin Bauer formulated the principle of the sustainable non-equilibrium state which he considered as the basic characteristics of living matter: “The living systems are never in equilibrium; at the expense of their free energy they constantly perform work to avoid the equilibrium required by the laws of physics and chemistry under existing external conditions”.[6]

Bauer's principle is incorporated into the non-linear thermodynamics of irreversible processes.[15] Living systems in this framework cannot support their organization only due to the influx of external energy, i.e. the ordering internal factor is involved. The activity of a living system is fully determined by the internal pattern of its non-equilibrium state, and any work performed by the biological system appears as the work of its structural forces. The process of evolution, according to Bauer, corresponds to the increase in external work, which aims to exploit additional resources to maintain the living state of evolving biosystems.[10][11]

References

  1. ^ abElek, Gábor; Müller, Miklós (2024). "Ervin Bauer's concept of biological thermodynamics and its different evaluations". Biosystems. 235 105090. Bibcode:2024BiSys.23505090E. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.105090. ISSN 0303-2647.
  2. ^Igamberdiev, Abir U. (2024). "Biological thermodynamics: Ervin Bauer and the unification of life sciences and physics". Biosystems. 235 105089. Bibcode:2024BiSys.23505089I. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.105089. ISSN 0303-2647. PMID 38000544.
  3. ^ abcMüller, Miklós; Elek, Gábor (2024). "The history of Ervin Bauer's publications on the theory of life". BioSystems. 241 105212. Bibcode:2024BiSys.24105212M. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2024.105212. ISSN 0303-2647. PMID 38636703.
  4. ^Hargittai, István; Hargittai, Balazs (2023). Brilliance in Exile: The Diaspora of Hungarian Scientists from John von Neumann to Katalin Karikó. Central European University Press. doi:10.1515/9789633866078. ISBN 978-963-386-607-8.
  5. ^Bauer, Erwin (1920). "Die Definition des Lebewesens auf Grund seiner thermodynamischen Eigenschaften und die daraus folgenden biologischen Grundprinzipien". Naturwissenschaften (in German). 8 (18): 338–340. Bibcode:1920NW......8..338B. doi:10.1007/BF02448266. ISSN 1432-1904.
  6. ^ abcMüller, Miklós; Igamberdiev, Abir U. (2024). "The emergence of theoretical biology: Two fundamental works of Ervin Bauer (1890–1938) in English translation". BioSystems. 241 105201. Bibcode:2024BiSys.24105201M. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2024.105201. ISSN 0303-2647.
  7. ^Bauer, Erwin (1920). Die Grundprinzipien der Rein Naturwissenschaftlichen Biologie und ihre Anwendungen in der Physiologie und Pathologie. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-34612-9. ISBN 978-3-662-34341-8.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  8. ^Bauer, Ervin (2025) [1920]. "Fundamental principles of biology as pure natural science and their applications in physiology and pathology". BioSystems. 252 105425. Bibcode:2025BiSys.25205425B. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2025.105425. ISSN 0303-2647. PMID 39978569.
  9. ^Bauer, Svetlana M. (2024). "Life and fate of Ervin Bauer (1890–1938), the eminent scholar and foundational theoretical biologist". BioSystems. 238 105191. Bibcode:2024BiSys.23805191B. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2024.105191. ISSN 0303-2647.
  10. ^ abBauer, Ervin (1935). Theoretical Biology. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó (published 1982). ISBN 9630530147. OCLC 10606643.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  11. ^ abBauer, Ervin (2025) [1935]. "Theoretical Biology". BioSystems. 252 105426. Bibcode:2025BiSys.25205426B. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2025.105426. ISSN 0303-2647. PMID 39988274.
  12. ^Elek, Gábor; Müller, Miklós (2013). "The living matter according to Ervin Bauer (1890–1938), (on the 75th anniversary of his tragic death) (History)". Acta Physiologica Hungarica. 100 (1): 124–132. doi:10.1556/APhysiol.99.2012.006. ISSN 0231-424X. PMID 23232706.
  13. ^Müller, Miklós 2005. Ervin Bauer (1890-1938), a martyr of science. The Hungarian Quarterly 178: 123-131.
  14. ^Pasha Zusmanovich, "Mathematicians Going East," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 14 Issue 1 (January 2024), pages 114-167. DOI: 10.5642/jhummath.EGCM7534. Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol14/iss1/8. Pages 118-119
  15. ^Brauckmann, Sabine (2000). "The Organism and the Open System: Ervin Bauer and Ludwig von Bertalanffy". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 901 (1): 291–300. Bibcode:2000NYASA.901..291B. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb06288.x. ISSN 1749-6632. PMID 10818580. S2CID 32141275.
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