Igal Talmi (
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
: יגאל תלמי) (born January 31, 1925) is an Israeli
nuclear physicist
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
.
Biography
Igal Talmi was born in 1925 in
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Ky ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...
, then part of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. His family immigrated to
Mandate Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...
later that year and settled in
Kfar Yehezkel
Kfar Yehezkel ( he, כְּפַר יְחֶזְקֵאל, ''lit.'' Yehezkel Village) is a moshav ovdim in northern Israel. Located in the Jezreel Valley, six kilometres southeast of Afula, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gilboa Regional Counci ...
. After graduating from
Gymnasia Herzliya in
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
in 1942, he joined the
Palmach
The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmac ...
.
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
Giulio (Yoel) Racah ( he, ג'וליו (יואל) רקח; February 9, 1909 – August 28, 1965) was an Italian–Israeli physicist and mathematician. He was Acting President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1961 to 1962.
The crater ...
. In 1949, he earned his doctorate at the
ETH Zurich
(colloquially)
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, image = ETHZ.JPG
, image_size =
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021)
, rector = Günther Dissertori
, president = Joël Mesot
, a ...
in Switzerland under
Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics fo ...
. From 1952 to 1954, he was a research fellow at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
, where he worked with
Eugene Wigner
Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his con ...
.
Igal is married to Chana (Kivelewitz). They have two children: a son, Prof. Yoav P. Talmi, M.D., a head and neck neurosurgeon; and a daughter, Prof. Tamar Dayan, a zoologist who is married to General (
Aluf
''Aluf'' ( he, אלוף, lit=champion or "First\leader of a group" in Biblical Hebrew; ) is a senior military rank in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for officers who in other countries would have the rank of general, air marshal, or admira ...
)
Uzi Dayan
Aluf (Major General, res.) Uzi Dayan (, born January 4, 1948) is a former general in the Israel Defense Forces and an Israeli politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for Likud from 2020 to 2021.
Biography
Uzi Dayan is a nephew of Moshe ...
.
Scientific career
In 1954, Talmi joined the
Weizmann Institute of Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...
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 is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
,
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...
(MIT),
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
and other universities as a
visiting professor
In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...
.
Talmi has been a member of the
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on r ...
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 30 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 structure.
[
] The
atomic nucleus
The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden experiments, Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment. After th ...
can be composed of a large number of
protons
A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron m ...
and
neutrons
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beha ...
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
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 (kinetic energy in the case of a gravitational potential well) because it is capt ...
. 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
The interacting boson model (IBM) is a model in nuclear physics in which
nucleons ( protons or neutrons) pair up, essentially
acting as a single particle with boson properties, with
integral spin of 0, 2 or 4.
It is sometimes known as the Inter ...
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 and recognition
* In 1962, awarded the Weizmann Prize of Tel Aviv Municipality.
* In 1965, awarded the
Israel Prize in exact sciences, together with his colleague Professor
Amos de-Shalit, for their work on "shell model" in nuclear physics.
* In 1971, received the Rothschild Prize.
* In 1972, elected
Fellow of the American Physical Society
The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its moti ...
* In 2000, awarded the
Hans Bethe Prize
The 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 field ...
of the
American Physical Society.
* In 2003, received the
EMET Prize
The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture is an Israeli prize awarded annually for excellence in academic and professional achievements that have far-reaching influence and make a significant contribution to society.
Prizes are awarded in the fol ...
,
EMET Prize Prime Minister's Office
/ref> presented by the prime minister of Israel.
Published works
''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
See also
*List of Israel Prize recipients
This is a complete list of recipients of the Israel Prize from the inception of the Prize in 1953 through to 2022.
List
For each year, the recipients are, in most instances, listed in the order in which they appear on the official Israel Prize ...
References
External links
''On single nucleon wave functions (Nov. 24 (2010) at RIKEN Nishina Center'')
Internet streaming broadcasting both on WM and QT (at 64k bps, 256 kbit/s, 1M bps) and DVD ISO (NTSC and PAL) delivery are now available a
RIKEN Nishina Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Talmi, Igal
1925 births
Living people
Ukrainian Jews
Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine
Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Israeli Jews
Israeli physicists
Israeli nuclear physicists
Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium alumni
Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
Academic staff of Weizmann Institute of Science
Israel Prize in exact science recipients
Israel Prize in exact science recipients who were physicists
EMET Prize recipients in the Exact Sciences
Members of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Jewish physicists
Fellows of the American Physical Society