Michael Polanyi was born on 11 March 1891 in Budapest. A Hungarian-British polymath, he influenced physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. A medical officer during the First World War, Polanyi worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Fibre Chemistry in Berlin in 1920, and in 1923, became the director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry. As danger for Jewish scholars increased, he resigned and moved to Manchester as Professor of Physical Chemistry in 1933 and Professor of Social Studies in 1948. He retired to Merton College, Oxford as Senior Research Fellow.
Awarded honorary degrees from Princeton, Cambridge, and Notre Dame, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1944. Though an active scientist, Polanyi is best known for his political and philosophical writings. Notable works include Atomic Reactions (1932), The Contempt of Freedom (1940), Full Employment and Free Trade (1945), The Logic of Liberty (1951), Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958), The Tacit Dimension (1967), and Knowing and Being (1969). R.T. Allen edited a collection of his work entitled Society Economic Philosophy: Selected Articles (1997).
