Arpad Elo

Life & Legacy

Arpad Emmerich Elo (né Élő Árpád Imre; August 25, 1903 – November 5, 1992) was a Hungarian-American physics professor who created the Elo rating system for two-player games such as chess.
Born in Egyházaskesző, Kingdom of Hungary, he moved to the United States with his parents in 1913. He obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in 1925 and 1928 from the University of Chicago, where he also played chess in the Chicago Chess League. From 1926 until his retirement in 1969, Elo was a physics instructor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. By the 1930s, he was the strongest chess player in Milwaukee, at the time one of the nation's leading chess cities. He won the Wisconsin State Championship eight times, and was the 11th person inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame. He also served as the president of American Chess Federation (predecessor of United States Chess Federation) for terms 1935 and 1936. Elo died of a heart attack at his home in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on November 5, 1992.