The Department of Theoretical Physics is the oldest one in the Department of Physics, its first head was Lorand Eötvös. The basic structure of our present teaching and research activity was formed when Rudolf Ortvay and Károly Novobátzky were in the chair. Since 1960 the Department lives in close symbiosis with the MTA-ELTE Theoretical Physics Research Group, resulting in several joint research projects.

Our Department has a unique computing facility: 350 PC-s are connected together to form "Poor Man's Supercomputer" which is used extremely succesfully in large scale QCD simulations. Also, in spite of being an Department of Theoretical Physics, we actively take part in the running of the von Kármán Laboratory of the Department devoted to studies in fluid dynamics.

Photo: the "world equation" of Werner Heisenberg written on a blackboard of the Department during his visit in 1964.