100 years of Martin Černohorský

The date of 31 August 2023 belongs to the celebration of the 100th birthday of the eminent physicist, Martin Černohorský, who connected his student and professional life with our faculty. His jubilee will be commemorated on September 7, 2023 with a seminar filled with lectures and reminiscences. This article is dedicated to a few memories and statements of the professor.

31 Aug 2023 Zuzana Jayasundera

Professor Martin Černohorský in his beloved Highlands on 27 July 2022. Photo: Marie Fojtíková

prof. RNDr. Martin Černohorský, CSc.

*31. 8. 1923

Graduated in mathematics and physics at MU, in 1948−1950 he worked at the faculty as an assistant. In 1952, he received the degree of Doctor of Natural Sciences and began working as an assistant professor at the Department of Physics. In 1956−1967, he worked as a research fellow at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1963 he received the title of Candidate of Science. Since 1967 to 1988 he worked at the faculty as an associate professor. Since 1989, he has worked with MU as an independent expert. In 1990 he became a professor. In 1992−1998 he was the first rector of the newly founded Silesian University in Opava. Since 1999 he has been the statutory emeritus professor at the Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics of the Faculty of Science of MU. For his work, not only for MU, he has received numerous awards, including Silver plaque of František Křižík of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences for merit in the development of technical sciences or the Gold Medal of MU for outstanding contribution to the scientific and educational activities of the University. For many years he was professionally involved in crystallography and radiography, the history of physics with a focus on Newton's work, and was and still is intensively involved in physics education.

Seminar on the occasion of his 100th birthday

This year's seminar was jointly organised by the three physics institutes of our faculty and the Brno branch of the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists and you can read about it in a separate article.

The future physicist and his first encounter with physics

Let's start with when and how Professor Černohorský first met physics, and how this meeting turned out: "When I found a glass in the kindergarten yard which, when exposed to a certain sun, aroused my amazement with a beautiful rainbow image, I ran joyfully to the teacher with my "invention". She, however, did not share my joy and with the words "You would spoil your eyes with that!" she threw the glass into the canal. And my first joyful encounter with physics in the form of the decomposition of light by a prism ended unhappily," recalled the professor in an interview, where he recalls in detail his childhood and student years at our faculty. You will also learn how exams were conducted during his studies and why it is important to work with primary sources in science in the age of the Internet. Which we'll illustrate in his study of Newton's work in the next paragraph.

Professor Martin Černohorský on a walk near the house in Brno where he has lived for 53 years, 22 May 2023. Photo Marie Fojtíková

A curiosity of physical-historical-linguistic

Professor Černohorský is an expert on the work of Isaac Newton. In connection with the study of Newton's work, he said, "The use of the Internet is natural and it would be wrong if it were not. This does not mean, however, that it is appropriate to neglect working with primary sources. There are cases where primary sources are irreplaceable." He illustrated this with an example where, as an educator, he brought students to understand a unique physico-historical-linguistic curiosity: for Newton's Latin formulation of the principles of inertia of motion, both translational and rotational, has been consistently mistranslated everywhere since its first translation (1729) as the principle of inertia of translational motion only. Thus Masaryk University is currently the only university where Newton's first law is interpreted correctly.

Remembrance of February 1948 at the Faculty

That Professor Černohorský is a great rememberer of the events at the Faculty, he showed also in his chapter (available only in Czech language) in the book History written by natural scientists: the history of science at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University. As he was the registrar and executive of the Scientific Department for Physics in 1948 and also an auxiliary scientific force at the Department of Experimental Physics, he describes and comments on the takeover of power after February 1948 in the field of physics: “Set by an organizationally advantageously chosen standard through the introduction of a transitional period of existence of the chairs within the purpose-built Scientific Section for Physics. On the other hand, some of the activities of the Faculty's Action Committee and the Disciplinary Commission operating during democratization do not hold up today and were not supposed to hold up even then," Professor Černohorský concluded this chapter in the book on the history of our faculty.

Professor Martin Černohorský with Dr. Jiří Grygar during the discussion evening for the wider public "Teacher and student discussion after 63 years" (counting from 1954). Brno, Moravian Library, 13 September 2017. Photo: Marie Fojtíková, a student from 20 years later

"An extraordinary combination of scientific precision and human kindness"

One of the professor's most famous students is astronomer Jiří Grygar. He wrote about his teacher: "Unlike all other university teachers, the young Dr. Černohorský was literally a revelation in how he differed in every respect from the more or less standardized or cautious, even fearful society in which we had to vegetate at that time. What impressed us all above all was the unusual combination of scientific precision and human kindness that illuminated every meeting, in lectures and exercises, during rehearsals and even at classical music concerts, and the unvarnished deep interest in the joys and sorrows of each student," concluded Jiří Grygar in his reminiscences.

"Teachers should be more interested in the joys and sorrows of their students"

Professor Černohorský has been involved in physics education for three quarters of a century. He sees the much-publicised individual approach in the education process as challenging from an organisational point of view alone. Especially with larger groups, the teacher cannot do without specific procedures, such as conducting exercises in a different way than when the teacher or student demonstrates the procedure for solving examples at the blackboard. Instead, a method whereby the teacher and his assistants (teaching assistants, research assistants) walk among the students working independently and are available to them at the student's or their own initiative is highly effective and allows for that otherwise difficult-to-achieve individual approach and the resulting benefits.

Behind Professor Martin Černohorský, from the left, the recent recipient of the MU Silver Medal Marie Fojtíková, her colleague from the Office of the Czech Rectors' Conference Eva Kalandříková, former student and long-term colleague of Professor Jana Musilová, and another colleague from the Office of the Czech Rectors' Conference Eliška Olšanová. Photo: MUNI

Interviews and videos with Martin Černohorský

A number of articles have been published about Professor Černohorský, let us mention at least the recent ones. In this article (available only in Czech language) you will read how last year the Institute of Physics of the Faculty of Science of MU in cooperation with the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists organised a seminar in honour of Professor Černohorský when he celebrated his 99th birthday. Another interview (available only in Czech language) is about the history of the Czech Rectors' Conference and his teaching work in the field of physics.

Marie Fojtíková, a former student and PhD student of the professor and also the head of the Office of the Czech Rectors' Conference, has long been involved in popularising the professor's work. For this she deserves a great deal of thanks. She is behind the creation of a series of personal video interviews where the professor recalls his life in detail. These videos (available in Czech language only) can be found in the links below.

Congratulations

During Martin Černohorský's time on the faculty, countless students have passed through his seminars, courses and lectures, many of whom have become teachers and have spread beyond the faculty, the university but also the Czech Republic. We congratulate Professor Martin Černohorský on his jubilee and thank him for his contributions to physics and education at the Faculty.