Daniel Sieff Research Institute, Rehovoth, Palestine PDF Download

Author: Chaim Weizmann Research Foundation (Chicago, Ill.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Author: Dietrich Stoltzenberg
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages :

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This biography of Fritz Haber, now abridged by the author and translated into English, illuminates the life of one of the most gifted yet controversial figures of the twentieth century. Haber, a brilliant physical chemist, carried out pioneering research in electrochemistry and thermodynamics and won the Nobel Prize for his synthesis of ammonia, a process essential for synthetic fertilizer — and for the explosives Germany needed in World War I. An ardent patriot, Haber also developed chemical weapons. Believing them to be no worse than other types of warfare, he directed the first true gas attack in military history from the front lines in Ypres, Belgium, in 1915. His nationalism also spurred his failed attempt to extract gold from seawater, in hopes of paying off Germany’s huge war reparations. Yet Haber, a Jew by birth, was exiled from his homeland in 1933 by the Nazis, and died the following year never knowing the full dire effects of his work, as Zyklon B, a gas studied in his institute around 1920, was used to murder prisoners in concentration camps, including members of Haber’s own family. With the help of previously unpublished documents and sources, Dietrich Stoltzenberg explores Haber’s personal life, the breakdown of his two marriages, his efforts to develop industrial and political support for scientific study in Germany, his directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Max Planck) Institute, his ethical struggles in times of war, and more. “A much needed and fine new biography of Haber” — Oren Harman, The New Republic “This exhaustive biography, first published in Germany in 1996, captures Haber’s complexity well. Based on diligent research, it offers significant detail on Haber’s professional life for both specialists and generalists... Stoltzenberg’s work is perhaps as rich a biography as can be written on Haber’s achievements... This is an excellent biography... [based on] extensive primary research... The result is a work that brings to light important facets not just of the life of Fritz Haber but of several decades of evolution of the German scientific milieu.” — Guillaume P. De Syon, H-Net Reviews of the German edition, winner of the Author’s Prize of the German Chemical Society: “[An] excellent biography” — Max Perutz, The New York Review of Books “Stoltzenberg has written a fine biography of this deeply flawed individual... [This] sympathetic and comprehensive account... should appeal to general readers as well as to historians and all those interested in the social responsibility of science.” — David Cahan, Nature “[S]ucceeds admirably in enlivening the many facets of this remarkable man and his extraordinary career as a creative academic, a leading member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, a shrewd businessman, and an influential advisor to various governments in Berlin. But Stoltzenberg is equally adept at presenting Haber the private man, who had to fight prejudice, endure two broken marriages, and, finally, emigration when the Nazis came to power in 1933... Stoltzenberg’s superb biography, which leaves little to be desired, is the remarkable achievement of a professional chemist turned historian.” — Peter Alter, Ambix “The book demonstrates Haber’s versatility as well as his enormous but not inexhaustible vitality... [T]he most detailed, best documented portrait we have of a remarkable and still controversial scientist.” — Jeffrey A. Johnson, Isis “Haber has finally found his ideal biographer in Dietrich Stoltzenberg, who possesses impeccable credentials for the task... [A] product of exemplary scholarship.” — George Kauffman, Annals of Science

Author: Joseph Wechsberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jewish scientists
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Author: Arthur S. Wightman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3642590330
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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The fourth volume of the Collected Works is devoted to Wigners contribution to physical chemistry, statistical mechanics and solid-state physics. One corner stone was his introduction of what is now called the Wigner function, while his paper on adiabatic perturbations foreshadowed later work on Berry phases. Although few in number, Wigners articles on solid-state physics laid the foundations for the modern theory of the electronic structure of metals.

Author: Isaac Landman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 692

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Author: Chaim Weizmann
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Chaim Weizmann’s autobiography is a highly personal account of his life in the Zionist movement. Book One, completed in 1941, covers the years 1874-1917 and Book Two covers the years 1918-1948. Weizmann describes the Russian shtetl where he was born in 1874, his schooling in Pinsk and his university studies in Berlin, Geneva and Freiburg (Switzerland) where he received his PhD in chemistry in 1899 before moving to Manchester in 1904. He portrays many leading Zionists such as Theodor Herzl, Achad Ha-am, Max Nordau, Shmarya Levin, Ussishkin, Jabotinsky, Ruppin. He describes the opposition by assimilationist Jews (like Edwin Montagu) to Zionism, and internal debates within the Zionist movement, such as the defeat of Herzl’s Uganda plan — bitterly opposed by Weizmann — at the 6th Zionist Congress (1903) and his frictions with the American Zionists led by Brandeis. Weizmann describes how, during World War I, his work on acetone brought him into contact with British political leaders such as Lloyd George, Arthur Balfour and Winston Churchill and facilitated the Balfour Declaration which, in 1917, paved the way for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. Weizmann recounts his role in the creation of what would become Israel’s leading scientific institutions, the Hebrew University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Technion, including his fundraising efforts in Europe and in the United States on their behalf and for other Zionist initiatives. He became the first President of Israel, and died in office in 1952. “... one of the important historical documents of our time.” — Orville Prescott, The New York Times (January 19, 1949) “[Trial and Error] is likely to be read for many years to come as an authoritative exposition of the Zionist movement ... records eye-witness accounts of so many crucial events and reflects so many deep insights that it is certain to become of permanent value to the scholar and a delight to the general reader.” — Salo Baron, The New York Times (January 23, 1949) “There are four angles from which one can approach this book. One can take it as a history of Zionism during the last seventy years... a record of personal endeavour triumphant over obstacles and dissension... a sad commentary upon human achievement, when eventual triumph comes at a date, and in circumstances, which rob it of its full savour... the self-portrait of a most remarkable man.” — Harold Nicolson, The Observer (March 27, 1949) “Notable in this intellectually candid record is the fact that [Weizmann] embraced and propagated Jewish nationalism because he regarded it as a positive good, not merely a negative escape from gentile persecution. This intensely human book, which in a sense is the story of modern Zionism, constitutes one of the indispensable sources for the history of our times.” — Robert Gale Woolbert, Foreign Affairs (July 1949) “[Weizmann’s] autobiography ... is an astonishingly objective and life-like narrative, without a trace of dramatization, exaggeration, vanity, self-pity, self-justification; it conveys his authentic, richly and evenly developed, autonomous, proud, firmly built, somewhat ironical nature, free from inner conflict, in deep, instinctive harmony with the forces of nature and society, and therefore possessed of natural wisdom, dignity and authority.” — Sir Isaiah Berlin, Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, Oxford University (November 19, 1957) “Ranks between Churchill’s war memoirs and those of Nehru, Masaryk and Trotzky, among the founders’ own stories ... above all a human book, the record of the experiences and reactions of a man who fought over issues that were important” — Congress Bulletin (April 1949)

Author: Richard Willstätter
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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In these memoirs, written after the author's dramatic emigration to Switzerland in 1939, Richard Willstätter (1872-1942) recounts his childhood in a Jewish family in Karlsruhe, his developing interest in chemistry, and his studies under Adolf von Baeyer, his mentor at the University of Munich. Willstätter writes only briefly about the tragic early deaths of his beloved wife and of his young son, but describes in detail his work as a leading organic chemist tackling difficult problems in plant pigments, chlorophyll, enzymes and more (in Zurich, Berlin and Munich where he succeeded his mentor) and his training of dozens of young chemists. In 1924, he resigned from the University of Munich in face of increasing antisemitism. The book offers candid portraits of major fellow chemists, including Willstätter’s close friend Fritz Haber, also a Nobel prize laureate, and describes life in German research universities before the Nazis' persecution of Jewish scholars decimated them. “The book goes far beyond a chronicle of events in Willstätter’s life; it is a valuable contribution to the history of chemistry...” — Nature “[Willstätter’s] story is a reflection of the glory and the tragedy that is modern German history... These memoirs, which are truly an inside story of German chemical scholarship, are filled with delightful personal reminiscences and interesting anecdotes about the great chemists Willstätter was associated with during the course of his remarkable career.” — David H. Kenny, Journal of Chemical Education “This autobiography is one of the outstanding books printed in Germany in recent years and it [provides] an insight into the thinking and working methods of a great scientist...” — The Chemist “Great scientists are rare, but great writers among them are almost unique. Willstätter’s autobiography, published posthumously and edited by his former student, Arthur Stoll, is an extremely moving book... This wonderful book... could, with profit, be made adjunct reading in an advanced organic chemistry course.” — Record of Chemical Progress “[Willstätter’s] knowledge of chemistry and chemical problems was encyclopedic, and as unlimited as the kindness he showed me... At a meeting of the [Munich] university senate some time in 1928 a discussion had arisen about the appointment of a mineralogist. A candidate was proposed, a front rank mineralogist by the name of Goldschmidt. As soon as the name was mentioned a murmur arose in the meeting and someone remarked: ‘Wieder ein Jude!’ (another Jew). Without saying a word Willstätter rose, collected his papers and left the room. He never crossed the threshold of the university again... Although his reputation was immense, and he was a Nobel prize winner, he was modest, unassuming and retiring in character; he often reminded me of the old-time venerable type of great Jewish Rabbi. For a long time Willstätter refused to understand what was taking place in Germany... to my repeated and insistent pleas that he leave Germany and come to us in Palestine, he turned a deaf ear. He came to the opening of the [Daniel Sieff Research, later Weizmann] Institute [in Rehovot] and returned to Germany (in 1934!). He still felt that he was protected by his reputation and by the devotion of the Munich public... His last word on the subject was: ‘I know that Germany has gone mad, but if a mother falls ill it is not a reason for her children to leave her. My home is Germany, my university, in spite of what has happened, is in Munich. I must return.’” — Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error

Author: Edward Victor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Zionism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Author: Frank N. Magill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136593691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1418

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Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.

Author: Great Britain. Colonial Office
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jordan
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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