Igal Talmi
Encyclopedia
Igal Talmi (born January 31, 1925) is a distinguished Israeli nuclear physicist.
, Ukraine
, then part of the Soviet Union
. His family immigrated to Mandate Palestine later that year and settled in Kfar Yehezkel
. After graduating from Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv
in 1942, he joined the Palmach
.
In 1947, Talmi completed his master's degree in physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, writing his M.Sc. thesis under the guidance of Giulio Racah. In 1949, he earned his doctorate at the ETH Zurich
in Switzerland under Wolfgang Pauli
. From 1952 to 1954, he was a research fellow at Princeton University
, where he worked with Eugene Wigner.
) Uzi Dayan
.
where he became Professor of Physics in 1958. Talmi was one of the founders of the Department of Nuclear Physics at the Weizmann Institute. He served as the Head of the Nuclear Physics Department (1967–1976), and the Dean of the Faculty of Physics (1970–1984). Talmi spent sabbatical years at Princeton
, Stanford
, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), Yale
and other universities as a visiting professor.
Talmi has been a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
since 1963, and was the Chairman of the Division of Sciences in from 1974 to 1980. He also served on the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.
In addition to his influential papers and conference talks, Talmi also wrote two books that
served as guides and companions to generations of nuclear structure theorists. The first,
written with the late Amos de-Shalit
, was a veritable bible of shell theory and the second,
written some thirty years later, continued the tradition of being an exhaustive compendium of relevant
results and derivations.
. The atomic nucleus
is composed of a large number of protons and neutrons which move due to strong interactions between them. In spite of their complexity, nuclei exhibit some simple and regular features. Most importantly, nuclei behave as if they move independently in a common static potential well
. This gives rise to the existence of shells of protons and neutrons much like the electronic shells in atoms. Nuclei whose proton and neutron shells are complete have special stability and the numbers of protons and of neutrons in them are called magic numbers
. This picture of the nucleus is called the nuclear shell model
to obtain the information from experimental data and use it to calculate and predict energies which have not been measured. This method has been successfully used by many nuclear physicists and has led to deeper understanding of nuclear structure. To calculate energies of nuclear states it is necessary to know the exact form of the forces which act between the nuclear constituents. These are still not sufficiently known even after many years of research. Talmi developed a method to obtain the information from experimental data and use it to calculate and predict energies which have not been measured. This method has been successfully used by many nuclear physicists and has led to deeper understanding of nuclear structure.
The theory which gives a good description of these properties was developed. This description turned out to furnish the shell model basis of the elegant and successful interacting boson model
s.
Talmi also participated in the study of explicit
fermion–boson mappings required to connect the interacting-boson model with its shell-model
roots and in the introduction of the boson F-spin analog to nucleon isospin.
Internet streaming broadcasting both on WM and QT at (at 64k bps, 256 kbps, 1M bps ) and DVD ISO (NTSC and PAL) delivery are now available at RIKEN Nishina Center.
Biography
Igal Talmi was born in 1925 in KievKiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, then part of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. His family immigrated to Mandate Palestine later that year and settled in Kfar Yehezkel
Kfar Yehezkel
Kfar Yehezkel is a moshav ovdim in northern Israel. It is located in the Jezreel Valley, six kilometres southeast of Afula. It is under the jurisdiction of the Gilboa Regional Council. In 2007, the moshav had a population of 755.-History:...
. After graduating from Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
in 1942, he joined the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
.
In 1947, Talmi completed his master's degree in physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, writing his M.Sc. thesis under the guidance of Giulio Racah. In 1949, he earned his doctorate at the ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
in Switzerland under Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after being nominated by Albert Einstein, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature, the exclusion principle or...
. From 1952 to 1954, he was a research fellow at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where he worked with Eugene Wigner.
Family
Igal is married to Chana (Kivelewitz) and has two children, a son, Prof. Yoav P. Talmi, M.D. and a daughter, Tamar Dayan, Professor of Zoology, who is married to General (AlufAluf
Aluf is the term used for General and Admiral in the Israel Defense Forces . In addition to the Aluf rank itself, there are four other ranks which are derivatives of the word...
) Uzi Dayan
Uzi Dayan
Uzi Dayan is an Aluf in the Israel Defense Forces and an Israeli politician. He is the nephew of General Moshe Dayan.-Early life and career:...
.
Scientific career
In 1954, Talmi joined the Weizmann Institute of ScienceWeizmann Institute of Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science , known as Machon Weizmann, is a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and post-graduate studies in the sciences....
where he became Professor of Physics in 1958. Talmi was one of the founders of the Department of Nuclear Physics at the Weizmann Institute. He served as the Head of the Nuclear Physics Department (1967–1976), and the Dean of the Faculty of Physics (1970–1984). Talmi spent sabbatical years at Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT), Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and other universities as a visiting professor.
Talmi has been a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was set up in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between scholars from the sciences and humanities in Israel, to advise the government on research projects of national importance, and to promote excellence. It comprises...
since 1963, and was the Chairman of the Division of Sciences in from 1974 to 1980. He also served on the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.
In addition to his influential papers and conference talks, Talmi also wrote two books that
served as guides and companions to generations of nuclear structure theorists. The first,
written with the late Amos de-Shalit
Amos de-Shalit
Amos de-Shalit was a distinguished Israeli nuclear physicist.-Biography:Amos de-Shalit was born in 1926 in Jerusalem in the then Palestine Mandate. He grew up in Tel Aviv and graduated from Gymnasia Balfour....
, was a veritable bible of shell theory and the second,
written some thirty years later, continued the tradition of being an exhaustive compendium of relevant
results and derivations.
Nuclear Physics research
Talmi’s main field of research is the theory of nuclear structureNuclear structure
Understanding the structure of the atomic nucleus is one of the central challenges in nuclear physics. This article is written from a nuclear physics perspective; as such, it is suggested that a casual reader first read the main nuclear physics article....
. The atomic nucleus
Atomic nucleus
The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The...
is composed of a large number of protons and neutrons which move due to strong interactions between them. In spite of their complexity, nuclei exhibit some simple and regular features. Most importantly, nuclei behave as if they move independently in a common static potential well
Potential well
A potential well is the region surrounding a local minimum of potential energy. Energy captured in a potential well is unable to convert to another type of energy because it is captured in the local minimum of a potential well...
. This gives rise to the existence of shells of protons and neutrons much like the electronic shells in atoms. Nuclei whose proton and neutron shells are complete have special stability and the numbers of protons and of neutrons in them are called magic numbers
Magic number (physics)
In nuclear physics, a magic number is a number of nucleons such that they are arranged into complete shells within the atomic nucleus...
. This picture of the nucleus is called the nuclear shell model
Shell model
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, the nuclear shell model is a model of the atomic nucleus which uses the Pauli exclusion principle to describe the structure of the nucleus in terms of energy levels. The first shell model was proposed by Dmitry Ivanenko in 1932...
to obtain the information from experimental data and use it to calculate and predict energies which have not been measured. This method has been successfully used by many nuclear physicists and has led to deeper understanding of nuclear structure. To calculate energies of nuclear states it is necessary to know the exact form of the forces which act between the nuclear constituents. These are still not sufficiently known even after many years of research. Talmi developed a method to obtain the information from experimental data and use it to calculate and predict energies which have not been measured. This method has been successfully used by many nuclear physicists and has led to deeper understanding of nuclear structure.
The theory which gives a good description of these properties was developed. This description turned out to furnish the shell model basis of the elegant and successful interacting boson model
Interacting boson model
The interacting boson model is a model in nuclear physics in whichnucleons pair up, essentiallyacting as a single particle with boson properties, withintegral spin of 0, 2 or 4....
s.
Talmi also participated in the study of explicit
fermion–boson mappings required to connect the interacting-boson model with its shell-model
roots and in the introduction of the boson F-spin analog to nucleon isospin.
Awards
- In 1962, Talmi was awarded the Weizmann Prize of Tel Aviv Municipality.
- In 1965, Talmi was awarded the Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
in exact sciences, together with his colleague Professor Amos de-ShalitAmos de-ShalitAmos de-Shalit was a distinguished Israeli nuclear physicist.-Biography:Amos de-Shalit was born in 1926 in Jerusalem in the then Palestine Mandate. He grew up in Tel Aviv and graduated from Gymnasia Balfour....
, for their work on "shell model" in nuclear physics. - In 1971, Talmi received the Rothschild Prize.
- in 2000, Talmi was awarded the Hans Bethe PrizeHans Bethe PrizeThe Hans A. Bethe Prize, is presented annually by the American Physical Society.The prize honors outstanding work in theory, experiment or observation in the areas of astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, or closely related fields...
of the American Physical SocietyAmerican Physical SocietyThe American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
. - In 2003, Talmi received the EMET PrizeEMET PrizeThe Emet Prize for Art, Science and Culture is an annual Israeli prize given for excellence in academic and professional achievements that have far reaching influence and significant contribution to society....
, presented by the prime minister of Israel.
Books
- Nuclear Shell Theory, co-author Amos de-Shalit (1963) Academic Press, (reprinted by Dover Publications)
- Simple Models of Complex Nuclei: The Shell Model and the Interacting Boson Model (1993) Harwood Academic Publishers
Recent Lecture
Internet streaming broadcasting both on WM and QT at (at 64k bps, 256 kbps, 1M bps ) and DVD ISO (NTSC and PAL) delivery are now available at RIKEN Nishina Center.
See also
- List of Israel Prize recipients