Amos de-Shalit

Amos de-Shalit

Born	(1926-09-29)September 29, 1926 Jerusalem, Mandate Palestine
Died	September 2, 1969(1969-09-02) (aged 42) Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Fields	Nuclear Physics
Institutions	Weizmann Institute of Science
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem ETH Zurich
Known for	Nuclear Shell Model

Amos de-Shalit (Hebrew: עמוס דה-שליט‎; September 29, 1926 – September 2, 1969^[1]) was a distinguished Israeli nuclear physicist.

Biography

Amos de-Shalit was born in 1926 in Jerusalem in the Palestine Mandate. He grew up in Tel Aviv and graduated from Gymnasia Balfour.

In 1949, de-Shalit earned his master's degree in physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, writing his M.Sc. thesis under the guidance of Giulio Racah. During the Israeli War of Independence, he served in the IDF Science Corps, together with other students of Professor Racah. During the war, de-Shalit, together with some other students, sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, stressing that the future of physics is nuclear physics and cosmic radiation. As a consequence, a number of students, including de-Shalit, were sent to the world's top nuclear institutions to gain the requisite knowledge. In 1951, he earned his doctorate at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. From 1952 to 1954, he was a research fellow at Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and spent some time at the Saclay Atomic Research Institute in France.

In 1954, de-Shalit was asked to establish the Department of Nuclear Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, which he headed for ten years. While working at the Weizmann Institute, he also served as a consultant to the Israel Ministry of Defense. From 1961 to 1963, de-Shalit served as science director of the Weizmann Institute and from 1966 to 1969, he served as the Institutes's Chief Executive/General Manager.^[2]

He died in 1969, not yet 43 years old, from acute pancreatitis. Amos de-Shalit was married to Nechama.

Awards and honours

In 1962, de-Shalit was elected as a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
In 1965, he was awarded the Israel Prize in exact sciences, together with his colleague Professor Igal Talmi,^[3] for their work on "shell model" in nuclear physics.
The De Shalit High School and two junior sister high schools in Rehovot were renamed after him.
In 1974, In conjunction with the Weizmann Institute, the "Amos de-Shalit Foundation" was founded to foster an increased awareness of the important role of science among Israeli youth, and "Amos de-Shalit Summer School program" was launched in his name.^[4]

Family

Amos de-Shalit's sons, Ehud and Avner, are professors, of mathematics and political science respectively, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His sister, Tamar, was married to Arthur Goldreich.

Published works

Nuclear Shell Theory, co-author Igal Talmi (1963) Academic Press, (reprinted by Dover Publications)

Theoretical Nuclear Physics: Nuclear Structure v. 1 Amos de-Shalit (Author), Herman Feshbach (Author) John Wiley and Sons

References