After 33 years of teaching at Occidental, mathematics professor Tamás Lengyel died Feb. 6. He was 73 years old.
According to his former student and colleague, mathematics professor Eric Sundberg, Lengyel’s passion for mathematics was evident in his accomplishments. While teaching five courses per year at Occidental, Lengyel published over 80 papers, book chapters and research studies, Sundberg said.
“He truly enjoyed math and was always doing it,” Sundberg said via email. “If you stopped by Fowler in the evening hours you’d find Tamás still working in his office, either proving some new result or helping the students from his classes.”
According to a Feb. 7 email from Director of Communications Rachael Warecki announcing Lengyel’s passing, Lengyel earned his doctorate in mathematics, with a specific focus on probability theory and statistics from Eötvös University in Budapest in 1979. He served as Occidental’s mathematics department chair from 1994-1997 and served as the liaison for the college’s computer science/engineering 3-2 program with Caltech and Columbia University from 1991-2017, according to the email.
“A mathematical constant, Lengyel’s Constant, and a sequence of numbers, the Lengyel numbers, were named in his honor,” Warecki said in the email.
Sundberg met Lengyel when he was a student at Occidental in the Fall of 1994. Sundberg said he attended extra Putnam Mathematical Competition exam preparation classes that Lengyel led because he wanted to share his passion for problem-solving with his students.
According to Sundberg, during the last study session before the exam, Lengyel took specific snack requests from each student.
“I remember when it came to candy, I think at first I said something like, ‘Any candy is good,’ and he said, ‘No, what specific candy do you want? Gummy bears? Kit-kat?’ I finally said, ‘York Peppermint Patties.’ I don’t think he knew what they were, so I described them to him, and sure enough, on the day of the exam he had a package of York Peppermint Patties just for me,” Sundberg said via email.
Taylor Ruehl (senior) is a mathematics major and took Probability with Lengyel. She said that he was her favorite professor at the college.
“I would go to his office hours a decent amount. He was very nice and welcoming and always answered questions if anyone ever had them,” Ruehl said. “I really liked how he explained things, which is why it was one of my favorite classes.”
Caroline Agostini (junior) is an economics major and working towards a mathematics minor. Agostini took Statistical Data Analysis with Lengyel her first year at Occidental.
“He was very passionate about math in general,” Agostini said. “He wanted everyone to really understand and love the material and apply it to real world scenarios. He also had a lot of quirks which were really fun.”
Agostini said that Lengyel loved Haribo gummy bears.
“I’m pretty sure he imported them from Europe,” Agostini said. “He would pass them out during class sometimes which [was] really nice.”
According to Agostini, Lengyel would show up during the scheduled lab time with the TA for her class and stay to help the students until late into the night.
“He was very pessimistic because he’s Hungarian and lived through [the effects of] World War II and the Cold War and everything,” Agostini said. “But also at the same time, he would show up and be like, ‘Everything’s chill, no one’s dead,’ which is a really good perspective even when you’re failing in class.”
Sundberg said that he got to know Lengyel much better once he decided to study abroad in the Budapest Semester in Mathematics program.
“Tamás is from Budapest and he would return there every summer for about a month or so to visit family, friends and the amazing cohort of Hungarian mathematicians still living there who were some of the top mathematicians in the world,” Sundberg said via email.
According to Sundberg, Lengyel spent time preparing him for cultural differences and challenging math courses, and he was excited to find out that Sundberg shared his passion for soccer.
“He was a huge soccer fan,” Sundberg said via email. “In particular, he supported the team MTK from Budapest. He was a die-hard fan, so much so that if I would ever wear a green colored shirt in his presence he’d grimace and ask me, ‘How could you wear that?’ Green is the color of the rival Budapest team. MTK is blue and white.”
Lengyel showed Sundberg and his roommate around Budapest and they attended an MTK soccer match together, Sundberg said.
According to Sundberg, his friendship with Lengyel further developed when he went to graduate school at Rutgers University where there were numerous Hungarians on the faculty. Sundberg said they would talk on the phone about the professors, but mostly about soccer.
“Once I started at Oxy, I ended up with the office next door to Tamás, so I would stop by and talk with him a lot,” Sundberg said. “We’d talk about my classes, the department, “Seinfeld,” soccer, soccer, some more soccer. He’d tell me about cool math problems or how to solve questions from my calculus class without using calculus. He was a phenomenal listener, and he would remember so much of what I told him. He knew the names of the people I played pick-up soccer with just by listening to my stories, and he remembered their names years later.”
According to Sundberg, he and Lengyel had many silly jokes together and Lengyel was amused by his absurd sense of humor. Sundberg said that Lengyel was the best mentor and role model that he could ever ask for, and Lengyel was generous with helping him with teaching, research and the tenure process.
“However, what I really appreciated was that by watching Tamás, talking to him, and just spending time with him I learned what it is to be a good and generous person with integrity, and what it is to be a good and loving husband and father,” Sundberg said.
Contact Ava LaLonde at lalonde@oxy.edu
