Giulio Racah
Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist
Giulio (Yoel) Racah (Template:Langx; February 9, 1909 – August 28, 1965) was an Italian–Israeli physicist and mathematician.<ref name="physicstoday118">Template:Cite journalTemplate:Dead link</ref> He was Acting President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1961 to 1962.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The crater Racah on the Moon is named after him.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Biography
[edit]Giulio (Yoel) Racah was born in Florence, Italy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On his mother's side, Racah's family claimed to trace its ancestry in Italy back to the destruction of the Second Temple.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He earned his Doctorate from the University of Florence in 1930, and continued his studies at Rome with Enrico Fermi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1939, due to application of Anti-Jewish laws in Italy, Racah emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Racah served as deputy commander of the Israeli forces defending Mount Scopus.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Racah died at the age of 56, apparently asphyxiated by gas from a faulty heater while visiting Florence.<ref name="physicstoday118"/>
Academic and scientific career
[edit]In 1937 Racah was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Pisa. In 1939, after his move to Palestine, he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, He later became Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and finally Rector and acting president from 1961 to 1962, following Benjamin Mazar and succeeded by Eliahu Eilat.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The physics institute at the Hebrew University is named "The Racah Institute of Physics".
Racah's research was mainly in the fields of quantum physics and atomic spectroscopy. He first devised a systematic general procedure for classifying the energy levels of open shell atoms, which remains to this day the accepted technique for practical calculations of atomic structure. This formalism was described in a monograph coauthored by his cousin Ugo Fano (Irreducible Tensorial Sets, 1959).
Awards and recognition
[edit]In 1958, Racah was awarded the Israel Prize in exact sciences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
[edit]- Racah W-coefficient
- Racah parameter
- Racah polynomials
- Racah seniority number
- Racah Lectures in Physics
- List of Israel Prize recipients
- Science and technology in Israel
References
[edit]External links
[edit]- Timeline (at Racah Institute of Physics at Hebrew University)
- Link to Racah Crater on Google Moon
- Pages with broken file links
- 20th-century Italian mathematicians
- 20th-century Israeli physicists
- 20th-century Israeli mathematicians
- 20th-century Italian physicists
- Italian emigrants to Mandatory Palestine
- Italian Zionists
- 20th-century Italian Jews
- University of Florence alumni
- Academic staff of the University of Pisa
- Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Israel Prize in exact science recipients
- Israel Prize in exact science recipients who were mathematicians
- Israel Prize in exact science recipients who were physicists
- Members of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
- Scientists from Florence
- 1909 births
- 1965 deaths
- Jewish physicists
- Presidents of universities in Israel
- Italian refugees
- Burials at Har HaMenuchot
- Weizmann Prize recipients