Discoveries considered by some of the leading scientists in the world as “a major advance in the physics of elementary atomic particles” have been made independently by two Jewish scientists and confirmed by 33 scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory which is headed by another Jew, according to announcements made here today.
The three scientists involved are, in the order of priority for their work listed by major scientists: Dr. Yuval Ne’eman, deputy director of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission; Dr. Murray Gell-Mann, professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; and Dr. Maurice Goldhaber, director of the Brookhaven Laboratory. A fourth physicist who contributed materially to the new scientific breakthrough is Dr. S. Okubo, of the University of Rochester.
Dr. Ne’eman, of Israel, now a visiting fellow at the California Institute of Technology, is credited with having been the first in the world to have discovered a unitary system for classifying certain atomic particles in groups of eight. Independently, Dr. Gell-Mann did work along the same lines. Under Dr. Goldhaber, Brookhaven scientists–aided by others from the University of Rochester and Syracuse University–succeeded in confirming these discoveries through laboratory work.
DR. NE’EMAN IS ISRAELI; DR. GELL-MANN WAS BORN IN NEW YORK
At a press conference scheduled for tomorrow, scientific details of the discovery and its meaning are expected to be discussed by Dr. Goldhaber under the aegis of the American Institute of Physics.
Dr. Ne’emann was born in Tel Aviv, obtained his scientific education in Israel, fought in the Hagana and in the Israel army during Israel’s War of Liberation, obtained advanced degrees in London, and is now assistant professor on-leave at Tel Aviv University.
Dr. Gell-Mann was born in New York. At 34, he is considered one of the world’s leading physicists–having obtained his degree of doctor of philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he was only 21.
Dr. Goldhaber was born in Lwow, Poland, has been a consultant to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and is considered one of the topmost physicists in the world.
In a telephone statement from Pasadena to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today, Dr. Ne’eman said he made his mathematical discovery, while serving as military attache at the Israel Embassy in London. He held the rank of colonel in the Israeli army.
“I am happy that we have in Israel now, a group of scientists continuing the work on this subject–on the frontiers of physics,” he told the JTA. That work, he said, is being done under the aegis of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission.
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