[_ugfj]

> Hungary had a great education system at the time.

I seriously doubt you could back this. You are generalizing from a single school. Might as well argue that socialist Hungary had a great education system because of Fazekas. Neither are true. I happen to have a maths teacher degree from a Hungarian university and we studied Hungarian education history and I learned much more about education systems later on my own (and this is not to say this university maths teacher course was a good one, quite the opposite). If you want to know what great education at the time looked like, read up on Summerhill -- it was founded in 1921 but humanistic education has been around for centuries.

[0-_-0]

While having a much smaller population (10M), Hungary places 4th in worldwide medal rankings on the International Mathematics Olympiad [1] behind China (1.5B), USA (300M) and Russia (150M)

[1]: https://www.imo-official.org/results_country.aspx?column=awa...

[chx]

There were a few, very few special math classes that went against the system which delivered results. I went to one, I should know...

[iguy]

If we're talking about von Neumann, or even just the math olympiad, then clearly we're not talking about how well the education system serves the 50th percentile. It's possible for a system to be awful for most, and somehow find and train the top few percent brilliantly.

[SamReidHughes]

Well, that's historical. In 2019 it was 1. China 1. USA 3. S. Korea (51M) 4. N. Korea (25M). And Hungary lost to Serbia (7M).

https://www.imo-official.org/year_country_r.aspx?year=2019&c...

[nabla9]

Mathematics culture and mathematical pedagogy in Hungary has legendary reputation. I don't know how their system works now,but at least up to 80s or 90s it was seen as being the highest level. It emphasized creativity, communication and problem solving.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-28582-5_...

[chx]

> but at least up to 80s or 90s it was seen as being the highest level. It emphasized creativity, communication and problem solving.

What utter baloney! There were a few, very few special math classes that went against the system which delivered results. I went to one, I should know...

[b0rsuk]

Pre-WW2 Poland also had a great math achievements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lw%C3%B3w_School_of_Mathematic...

The city Lwów, or Lviv as Ukrainians now call it, had a great school and the city changed hands during war.

Also, Polish mathematicians from other universities played an important part in breaking the Enigma. They developed the Bombe, the cryptographic machine later sent to UK, which was then refined and used to break it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

More generally, I suspect it was something about the era and its culture that valued intellect and sciences. These days people like that are often put down as nerds. Leaders and extraverts are praised and set as examples. Celebrities are also a modern invention, I see them as something quite distinct from "stars". The only requirement to be a celebrity is to be popular.

Also, these days people would rather worship CEOs.