Great Tasks Await Scholars in Hebrew Physics Institute

1924–an unprecedented occurrence. A long procession of motorcars wound its way up Scopus, “the mount of gazing,” where the first scientific address was to be delivered under the auspices of the Hebrew University. Crowds of peasants had collected from the neighboring Arab villages because they had never seen so much bustle and activity on this spot. The news that one of the greatest scholars in the world was to speak about his work had spread like wildfire. It was no less a celebrity than Einstein.

A THRILLING VIEW

This new Institute of Physics is not designed merely to fill an urgent need of the University as such, even though the methods applied to physics are beginning to enter into every branch of scientific investigation; it is of equal importance for the general research work going on all over Palestine. It may even be said to fulfill a purely practical and economic function. Hitherto no facilities existed for examining and testing building materials by scientific methods, a factor of extreme importance in a country with such intensive building activity.

PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED

In the first instance, however, the Institute will be called upon to solve questions nowhere to be death with so well as in Palestine owing to the advantage offered there of its climatic conditions. An astro-physical observatory, which would work under exceptionally favorable conditions, is to be attached to the spectoscopical laboratory. Few countries have so transparent an atmosphere as Palestine. As in more northern latitudes the air has little dust and, in contrast to the tropics generally, is free from moisture. For the greater part of the year the sky is cloudless and presents a picture of undimmed radiance. Moreover, there is no other observatory in the whole of the Near East. The nearest on European soil is at Athens.

Great tasks await the scholars who will take up their work in this building on the edge of the desert. A new and important step in the development of the Hebrew University is about to be taken. In the beautiful and lucid words of the Bible, “Migdal Zofim al Har ha-Zofim,” meaning — “A watch tower has been erected on the Mount of Gazing,” Mount Scopus.

BUILDING NAMED FOR DONORS

The University is indebted for a considerable part of the funds expended on the erection of the building to Dora and Solomon Monness Shapiro of New York. Mr. Philip Wattenberg, too (who passed away in Jerusalem this Spring, mourned not only by the University but by the whole Jewish community), and his wife have largely contributed to the cost of the Institute; their names are likewire perpetrated in the Institute of Mathematics of the University, which they donated.

Whilst the Institute of Mathematics building bears the name of “Wattenberg,” that of the Institute of Physics will be called “Solomon and Dora Monness Shapiro House.” The names of the generous donors having been thus permanently associated with the buildings, the two Institutes will be known as “Einstein Institute of Mathematics and Physics,” in honor of the greatest physicist of our times.