Igal Talmi

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Infobox Scientist


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name = Igal Talmi
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birth_date = Birth date and age|1925|01|31
birth_place = Kiev, Ukraine
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field = nuclear physics
work_institutions = Weizmann Institute of Science
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Igal Talmi (January 31 1925 - ) is an Israeli nuclear physicist, mainly known for his work on the theory of nuclear structure.

Early life

Igal Talmi was born on January 31, 1925 in Kiev, Ukraine. He immigrated to Palestine with his family later that year and went to live in Kfar Yehezkel. He graduated from Herzlia Gymanasium in Tel Aviv in 1942 and joined the Palmach.

From 1943 to 1947 Talmi completed his master's degree in physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His M.Sc. thesis was written under the guidance of Professor Giulio Racah. He fought in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Israeli War of Independence in 1947 and served until 1949. From 1949 to 1951 Talmi, like some of his colleagues, was sent abroad by the Israeli authorities. He studied and completed his doctor's degree (Dr. Sc. Nat.) at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland, under the supervision of Professor Wolfgang Pauli. He was a research fellow at Princeton University in the years 1952-1954 where his host was Professor Eugene Wigner.

Personal life

Igal Talmi is married to Chana (Kivelewitz). They have a son, Yoav P., and a daughter, Tamar (Dayan).

Career

In 1954 Talmi joined the Weizmann Institute of Science where he became Professor of Physics in 1958. He served as the Head of the Nuclear Physics Department (1967-1976), and the Dean of the Faculty of Physics (1970-1984). During his years in the Weizmann Institute, Prof. Talmi spent sabbatical years etc. at Princeton, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 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 between 1974 -1980.He also served as a member of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

Honours

In recognition of his research achievements he was awarded the Weizmann Prize of Tel Aviv Municipality in 1962, the Israel Prize in 1965, the Rothschild Prize in 1971, the Hans Bethe Prize of the American Physical Society in 2000 and the E.M.T. Prize presented by the prime minister of Israel in 2003.

Publications

Talmi published numerous papers in scientific journals on theoretical nuclear structure physics. In 1963 he published with A.de-Shalit a book, "Nuclear Shell Theory" (Academic Press, later reprinted by Dover Publications). In 1993 he published a book, "Simple Models of Complex Nuclei–The Shell Model and the Interacting Boson Model" (Harwood Academic Publishers).

Work

Most of the Talmi’s research is on the theory of nuclear structure. The atomic nucleus is composed of a rather 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. The most important one is that 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 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 necessary information on them 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 for many years. It also led to deeper understanding of which forces give rise to the various aspects of nuclear structure.

References

[http://www.weizmann.ac.il/physics/staff/Talmicv2007.pdf Prof. Talmi's CV]