Category Archives: Science & Technology

Jews in the World of Science and Technology

Jew of the Week: Paul Erdős

Greatest Mathematician in History

Math Extraordinaire Paul Erdos

Paul Erdős (1913-1996) was born in Budapest, Hungary, the son of Jewish mathematicians from whom he inherited his gift. By age three, Erdos was able to instantly calculate the amount of seconds a person had lived. In 1930, he was allowed into university despite Hungary’s restrictions on Jewish students. After becoming a mathematics professor, he was forced to flee European anti-Semitism and came to teach at Princeton University. By 1956 he was so well-known that his native Hungary gave him a free pass to enter and exit the country as he pleased, despite Hungary’s position behind the Iron Curtain. Erdős would go on to publish more papers on mathematics than any other human in history. He wrote 1,525 math articles in his life, collaborating with 511 people (he was a strong proponent of group work). Unmarried and without children, he was a wandering mathematician, travelling the globe with all his possessions in a single suitcase. He donated every award and prize he received. Erdos wished his epitaph to say: “I’ve finally stopped getting dumber.”

Words of the Week

Old age is a virtue and a blessing… It is true that a 20-year-old can dance the night away while his grandmother tires after a few minutes. But man was not created to dance for hours on end. Man was created to make life on earth purer, brighter and holier than it was before he came on the scene… In this regard, a person’s value and productivity only increases with age… The institution of ‘retirement’, which pushes million of men and women to the sidelines of society each year, is a tragic waste of human life and resources.
– The Lubavitcher Rebbe

Jew of the Week: Stan Ovshinsky

Inventor of (Almost) Everything

Mr. Ovshinsky made your life a lot easier

Stanford Ovshinsky (b. 1922) was born in Akron, Ohio to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Belarus. Instilled by his father with a sense of working for the good of the public, Ovshinsky went on to invent over 400 things for which he holds patents. He first created a special high-speed lathe that was used in the war effort to rapidly produce artillery shells. In 1951 he moved to Detroit to work in the auto industry and invented, among many other things, electric power steering. Besides mechanical engineering, Ovshinsky studied a diverse array of other subjects and one of his main focuses was neurophysiology. He was able to fashion a model nerve cell that was hailed as a breakthrough in nanotechnology. He also discovered what became known as the “Ovshinsky Effect”, which led to the development of rewritable CDs, DVDs and flat-screen displays. Ovshinsky is most famous for his work in batteries and solar cells. He invented the rechargeable (Ni-H) battery, and shattered all expectations by creating a 30 megawatt solar generator at a time when even 5 megawatts was a dream. Although he is nearly 90 years old, Ovshinsky continues his work, mostly on photovoltaic cells, with the express goal of making fossil fuels obsolete. He has been compared to both Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, and is often called the “world’s most important energy visionary.” TIME Magazine named him “Hero of the Planet” in 1999. He has won countless awards and published over 300 scientific papers. His latest thin-film PV invention may soon be powering all of your devices, but you’ve probably never heard of him (until now). His humility can be summed up in his own words: “I’m not going to tell you about it, I’m just going to show you”.

Update: Sadly, Stanford Ovshinsky passed away on October 17, 2012 – five months after this piece was originally posted.

Words of the Week

Study the past if you want to define the future.
– Confucius

Jew of the Week: Rita Levi-Montalcini

The Secret to Living 100 Years

Rita Levi-Montalcini: Knight, Senator, Neurologist, Centenarian

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Italy in 1909, and still goes to work every day at the European Brain Institute. If you didn’t catch that: she is 103 years old. That makes her the only Nobel Prize winner in history to live 100 years. She won the prize together with fellow Jew Stanley Cohen for discovering Nerve Growth Factor, the main protein involved in neurological development. Levi-Montalcini went to medical school in the 1930s, but was barred from being a physician by Mussolini’s race laws that prevented Jews from holding academic professions. So she set up a laboratory in her home and studied the nerves of chickens. This was the basis for many of her future discoveries. Wherever her family fled during the war, Levi-Montalcini set up mobile labs; at one point even running a genetics lab from her bedroom! After the war she continued her research and taught at Washington University for 30 years. She has won the National Medal of Science, and was knighted, too. In 2001, Levi-Montalcini was appointed a senator for life and is the eldest member of Italy’s Upper House. Her advice for living a long and healthy life: “minimal sleep, limited food intake, and always keeping the brain active and interested.”

UPDATE: Sadly, Rita Levi-Montalcini passed away in December of 2012, seven months after this post was originally published.

Words of the Week

Walking is man’s best medicine.
– Hippocrates