Nadene Goldfoot
Physics was my hardest subject in my science classes, but I see there have been many outstanding Jewish scientists in this field. They were all men except for one woman. Up to the mid-19th century, the Jewish contribution was slight. After that, it burst forth: The tremendous advances have been made by Jews, prominence showing up in both the experimental and theoretical fields with several having received NOBEL PRIZES. Considering that Jews make up only 0.02% of the world population, this is amazing for this tiny group. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews although the Jewish population comprises less than 0.2% of the world's population. Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, and its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves.
1. Heinrich Rudolph Herz (1857-1894) German physicist; professor at Kiel, Karlsruhe, and Bonn. He pioneered in research on electromagnetic waves, discovered the elements of modern radiotechnics. He also originated the investigation of photoelectric phenomena. He discovered electric waves of large amplitude (known as "hertzian waves.") His nephew is below, Gustave Ludwig Hertz.
2. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German physicist, born in Ulm, Germany but educated in Switzerland, is the most well known with his relativity theory which revolutionized the entire scientific approach to the Universe. His IQ was 180. He was a professor of physics at Belin U and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics. Nazism rose in 1933 when he settled in the USA, citizen in 1940. His theory revolutionized concepts of space and time in physics and philosophy and the foundations of exact sciences. He contributed to the foundation of quantum theory, receiving a Nobel Prize for that in 1921. His theory paved the way for advances in atomic physics. Einstein was a conscious Jew and active supporter of Zionism. He was a trustee at Hebrew U where he donated the manuscripts of his theory of relativity. He died at age 75.
3. Niels Bohr (1886-1962) Danish physicist, who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research. He predicted the existence of a new zirconium-like element, which was named hafnium, after the Latin name for Copenhagen, where it was discovered. Later, the element bohrium was named after him. In September 1943, word reached Bohr and his brother Harald that the Nazis considered their family to be Jewish, since their mother was Jewish, and that they were therefore in danger of being arrested. The Danish resistance helped Bohr and his wife escape by sea to Sweden on 29 September. The next day, Bohr persuaded King Gustaf V of Sweden to make public Sweden's willingness to provide asylum to Jewish refugees. On 2 October 1943, Swedish radio broadcast that Sweden was ready to offer asylum, and the mass rescue of the Danish Jews by their countrymen followed swiftly thereafter. Some historians claim that Bohr's actions led directly to the mass rescue, while others say that, though Bohr did all that he could for his countrymen, his actions were not a decisive influence on the wider events. Eventually, over 7,000 Danish Jews escaped to Sweden. Bohr claimed to be an aetheist.
4. Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931) USA physicist, Professor at U of Chicao from 1892, successfully tested the relative velocity of the earth and the ether and also conducted studies in measuring the velocity of light. His experiments broke down the theory of a static ether and laid much of the experimental base for the special theory of relativity. He received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1907.
5. Hermann Minkowsky (1864-1909) Lithuanian or Latvian mathematician, Taught a Bonn,etc, noted for his investigations of the mathematical basis of relativity, giving the time dimension equal importance with the space dimensions; Baptized. He developed the geometry of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.
6. Tullio Levi-Civita: (1873-1941) Italian Mathematician, was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus and its applications to the theory of relativity, but who also made significant contributions in other areas. He was a pupil of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, the inventor of tensor calculus. He paved the way for Einstein. Born into an Italian Jewish family in Padua, Levi-Civita was the son of Giacomo Levi-Civita, a lawyer and former senator. He graduated in 1892 from the University of Padua Faculty of Mathematics. In 1894 he earned a teaching diploma after which he was appointed to the Faculty of Science teacher's college in Pavia.
Michele Angelo Besso (1873-1955) was a Swiss/Italian engineer. Besso was born in Riesbach from a family of Italian Jewish descent. He went to school with Einstein. Besso is credited with introducing Einstein to the works of Ernst Mach, the sceptical critic of physics who influenced Einstein's approach to the discipline. Einstein called Besso “the best sounding board in Europe” for scientific ideas. In Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity, he ended the paper stating, “In conclusion, let me note that my friend and colleague M. Besso steadfastly stood by me in my work on the problem here discussed, and that I am indebted to him for many a valuable suggestion.”
7. James Franck (1882-1964) German physicist, an authority on nuclear physics and photochemistry before 1933. He was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in physics. He immigrated to the USA in 1935 and taught at John Hopkins U, Baltimore in 1935-38, an the U of Chicago from 1938 to 1953. He investigated the structure of matter, especially the kinetics of electrons.
8. Gustave Ludwig Hertz: (1887-1975) German experimental physicist, nephew of director of Research Lab in Russia, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz; head of Physics Institute in Leipzig from 1954-61: With James France, . he investigated the kinetics of electrons and shared with him the 1925 Nobel Physics Prize. In 1932 he discovered a new method of isolating isotopes in gases. He later demonstrated the quantitative relations between the series of spectral lines and the energy losses of electrons in collision with atoms corresponding to the stationary energy states of the atoms. His results were in perfect agreement with Bohr’s theory of atomic structure, which included the application of Planck’s quantum theory. He helped to develop the quantum theory.
9. Vito Volterra (1860-1940) Italian physicist, mathematician and senator, professor at Turin and Roe. His functional calculus has been termed the most important advance in modern mathematical science.
10. Max Born (1882-1970) German physicist, kicked out of Gottingen post by Nazis in 1933, immigrated to England, but returned to Germany after 1945. He was an authority on quantum theory, atomic structure, the dynamics of matter, and relativity. He received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1954. He did not identify himself with Judaism. Max Born, born on the 11th December 1882 in Breslau (at this time in Germany, now in Poland) was the son of anatomist and embryologist Gustav Born and Margarete Kauffmann. He attended König Wilhelm Gymnasium, but before that he had been taught in home, because "he was considered too frail to attend the public school". Max Born was at Göttingen until April 1933. He didn't leave this place for his own sake, but he was forced to do so. Forced by Nazi - Jews were dismissed from universities, so Born with his family moved to England, where he stayed until his retirement in 1953. Then he moved to a small town near Göttingen, where he died on 5 January 1970.
11. Abraham Fedorovich Joffe/Yoffe/Ioffe: (1880-1960) Russian physicist, pupil and assistant to Rontgen, taught at St. Petersburg U and was a founder f its X-ray and Radiological Institute. He directed the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad from 1932-51, president of the Society of Sovie Physicists. In 1942 he was awarded a Stalin Prize. His researches ee mainly in the field of Electrotechnics and included work on the physical properties of crystals and and the characteristic of dielectrics and half-conductors. Ioffe was born into a middle-class Jewish family in the small town of Romny, Russian Empire (now in Sumy Oblast, Ukraine).
12. Sir Franz(Francis Eugene) Simon (1893-1956) German physicist, taught at Berlin, Breslau, immigrated in 1933 to England to teach at Oxford. His work in the field of low temperature physics was of fundamental importance in atomic research. Sir Francis Simon was a German and later British physical chemist and physicist who devised the gaseous diffusion method, and confirmed its feasibility, of separating the isotope Uranium-235 and thus made a major contribution to the creation of the atomic bomb. The rise of anti-Semitic fascism in Germany in the 1930s caused him and his wife to consider emigrating. Aware of his concerns Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell met him in Walther Nernst's laboratory during Easter 1933, and invited him to join the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford. He was also able to offer him a two-year grant research from Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) of £800. Simon resigned on 1 July 1933, but before he could leave an official demanded that he and his wife surrender their passports. Simon then flung his Iron Cross and other medals onto the table. Their passports were later returned, for reasons unknown. Using the services of a corrupt customs official Simon was able to take his research equipment with him. His wife and children followed him two months later. Upon arrival in the UK, he started using the Anglicised name "Francis".
AMONG SCIENTISTS RESPONSIBLE FOR DEVELOPMENT IN NUCLEAR PHYSICS IN RECENT YEARS
13. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) USA physicist, professor of physics at the U of California and California Institute of Technology from 1929 to 47, directed atomic energy research and the manufacture of the atom bomb during WWII. In 1947-66, was director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Oppenheimer served as chairman of the general advisory committee of the US atomic energy commission until 1954 when he was suspended following allegations of leftwing associations.
14. Edward Teller (1908 ) Budapest, Hungarian physicist, immigrated to England, then to USA in 1934, profesor at the U of Washington, Chicago and California. He served on the advisory board of the American Atomic Energy Commission ad worked on the development of the hydrogen bomb.
15. Lise Meitner (1878-1968) Vienna, Austrian physicist, she taught in Berlin until about 1933, then immigrated to Stockholm, Sweden. With Otto Hahn, she discovered in 1917 the element protactinium, and later proved the existence of other radioactive elements. She investigated thorium and actinium, while her researches on the splitting of the uranium nucleus are of fundamental importance in the exploitation of atomic energy. She immigrated to England in 1960 and settled in Cambridge.
IN ISRAEL, RESEARCH IN PHYSICS : HEBREW UNIV., WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, HAIFA TECHNION.
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates#:~:text=As%20of%202019%2C%20the%20most,was%20economics%20laureate%20Michael%20Kremer.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
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Physics was my hardest subject in my science classes, but I see there have been many outstanding Jewish scientists in this field. They were all men except for one woman. Up to the mid-19th century, the Jewish contribution was slight. After that, it burst forth: The tremendous advances have been made by Jews, prominence showing up in both the experimental and theoretical fields with several having received NOBEL PRIZES. Considering that Jews make up only 0.02% of the world population, this is amazing for this tiny group. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews although the Jewish population comprises less than 0.2% of the world's population. Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, and its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves.
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| Einstein on left with David Ben Gurion, Einstein was offered Presidency of Israel in 1952 after the death of Chaim Weizmann but turned it down. |
3. Niels Bohr (1886-1962) Danish physicist, who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research. He predicted the existence of a new zirconium-like element, which was named hafnium, after the Latin name for Copenhagen, where it was discovered. Later, the element bohrium was named after him. In September 1943, word reached Bohr and his brother Harald that the Nazis considered their family to be Jewish, since their mother was Jewish, and that they were therefore in danger of being arrested. The Danish resistance helped Bohr and his wife escape by sea to Sweden on 29 September. The next day, Bohr persuaded King Gustaf V of Sweden to make public Sweden's willingness to provide asylum to Jewish refugees. On 2 October 1943, Swedish radio broadcast that Sweden was ready to offer asylum, and the mass rescue of the Danish Jews by their countrymen followed swiftly thereafter. Some historians claim that Bohr's actions led directly to the mass rescue, while others say that, though Bohr did all that he could for his countrymen, his actions were not a decisive influence on the wider events. Eventually, over 7,000 Danish Jews escaped to Sweden. Bohr claimed to be an aetheist.
4. Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931) USA physicist, Professor at U of Chicao from 1892, successfully tested the relative velocity of the earth and the ether and also conducted studies in measuring the velocity of light. His experiments broke down the theory of a static ether and laid much of the experimental base for the special theory of relativity. He received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1907.
5. Hermann Minkowsky (1864-1909) Lithuanian or Latvian mathematician, Taught a Bonn,etc, noted for his investigations of the mathematical basis of relativity, giving the time dimension equal importance with the space dimensions; Baptized. He developed the geometry of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.
Michele Angelo Besso (1873-1955) was a Swiss/Italian engineer. Besso was born in Riesbach from a family of Italian Jewish descent. He went to school with Einstein. Besso is credited with introducing Einstein to the works of Ernst Mach, the sceptical critic of physics who influenced Einstein's approach to the discipline. Einstein called Besso “the best sounding board in Europe” for scientific ideas. In Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity, he ended the paper stating, “In conclusion, let me note that my friend and colleague M. Besso steadfastly stood by me in my work on the problem here discussed, and that I am indebted to him for many a valuable suggestion.”
Besso died in Geneva, aged 81. In a letter of condolence to the Besso family, Albert Einstein wrote “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future only has the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one.” Einstein died one month and 3 days after his friend, on 18 April 1955.
8. Gustave Ludwig Hertz: (1887-1975) German experimental physicist, nephew of director of Research Lab in Russia, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz; head of Physics Institute in Leipzig from 1954-61: With James France, . he investigated the kinetics of electrons and shared with him the 1925 Nobel Physics Prize. In 1932 he discovered a new method of isolating isotopes in gases. He later demonstrated the quantitative relations between the series of spectral lines and the energy losses of electrons in collision with atoms corresponding to the stationary energy states of the atoms. His results were in perfect agreement with Bohr’s theory of atomic structure, which included the application of Planck’s quantum theory. He helped to develop the quantum theory.
9. Vito Volterra (1860-1940) Italian physicist, mathematician and senator, professor at Turin and Roe. His functional calculus has been termed the most important advance in modern mathematical science.
11. Abraham Fedorovich Joffe/Yoffe/Ioffe: (1880-1960) Russian physicist, pupil and assistant to Rontgen, taught at St. Petersburg U and was a founder f its X-ray and Radiological Institute. He directed the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad from 1932-51, president of the Society of Sovie Physicists. In 1942 he was awarded a Stalin Prize. His researches ee mainly in the field of Electrotechnics and included work on the physical properties of crystals and and the characteristic of dielectrics and half-conductors. Ioffe was born into a middle-class Jewish family in the small town of Romny, Russian Empire (now in Sumy Oblast, Ukraine).
12. Sir Franz(Francis Eugene) Simon (1893-1956) German physicist, taught at Berlin, Breslau, immigrated in 1933 to England to teach at Oxford. His work in the field of low temperature physics was of fundamental importance in atomic research. Sir Francis Simon was a German and later British physical chemist and physicist who devised the gaseous diffusion method, and confirmed its feasibility, of separating the isotope Uranium-235 and thus made a major contribution to the creation of the atomic bomb. The rise of anti-Semitic fascism in Germany in the 1930s caused him and his wife to consider emigrating. Aware of his concerns Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell met him in Walther Nernst's laboratory during Easter 1933, and invited him to join the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford. He was also able to offer him a two-year grant research from Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) of £800. Simon resigned on 1 July 1933, but before he could leave an official demanded that he and his wife surrender their passports. Simon then flung his Iron Cross and other medals onto the table. Their passports were later returned, for reasons unknown. Using the services of a corrupt customs official Simon was able to take his research equipment with him. His wife and children followed him two months later. Upon arrival in the UK, he started using the Anglicised name "Francis".
AMONG SCIENTISTS RESPONSIBLE FOR DEVELOPMENT IN NUCLEAR PHYSICS IN RECENT YEARS
13. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) USA physicist, professor of physics at the U of California and California Institute of Technology from 1929 to 47, directed atomic energy research and the manufacture of the atom bomb during WWII. In 1947-66, was director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Oppenheimer served as chairman of the general advisory committee of the US atomic energy commission until 1954 when he was suspended following allegations of leftwing associations.
15. Lise Meitner (1878-1968) Vienna, Austrian physicist, she taught in Berlin until about 1933, then immigrated to Stockholm, Sweden. With Otto Hahn, she discovered in 1917 the element protactinium, and later proved the existence of other radioactive elements. She investigated thorium and actinium, while her researches on the splitting of the uranium nucleus are of fundamental importance in the exploitation of atomic energy. She immigrated to England in 1960 and settled in Cambridge.
IN ISRAEL, RESEARCH IN PHYSICS : HEBREW UNIV., WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, HAIFA TECHNION.
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates#:~:text=As%20of%202019%2C%20the%20most,was%20economics%20laureate%20Michael%20Kremer.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
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