Project no. MEC_SZ 148984 has been implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation of
Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the MEC_SZ_24 funding scheme.

       

János Aczél was born on December 26, 1924 in Budapest. He received his doctorate in mathematical analysis under the supervision of Lipót Fejér and Frigyes Riesz from the Péter Pázmány University (now Eötvös Loránd University) in Budapest in 1947. He was elected to be a fellow of The Royal Society of Canada, an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the Hamburg Mathematical Society. Aczél held honorary degrees from the University of Karlsruhe, the University of Graz, the University of Silesia in Katowice, the University of Debrecen, and the University of Miskolc. 

Thanks to his active scientific and organizing work, he became the most recognized expert of the theory of functional equations. He organized the first International Symposium on Functional Equations in 1962 in Oberwolfach. The series of conferences created from this event is the most important annual gathering of functional equationists. He had a broad network of researchers and nurtured the resulting friendships and scientific collaborations enthusiastically. During his years in Debrecen, János Aczél created a scientific school that is still active today, which was previously led by Zoltán Daróczy and currently by Zsolt Páles. In 1968, he founded the journal Aequationes Mathematicae, which has become the leading international scientific forum of the field ever since. He was the editor-in-chief of this journal for 20 years.

Further details of his life and achievements can be found in the following sources: 

Daróczy, Z. An interview with János Aczél. Aequat. Math. 89, 1–16 (2015).

János Aczél on Wikipedia