Just Joking, Seriously

English

Prof. Sergei Yakovenko. Growing up in the USSR

Prof. Sergei Yakovenko

 

As a child growing up in the former Soviet Union, there was no doubt in Sergei Yakovenko's mind that he would one day be a chemist. When he was 10, he read that phosphorus, a chemical element that glows in the dark, could be produced by boiling and sublimating urine. He tried the procedure. It was "a scientific and familial failure," he says. Coming home to the pungent smell of an experiment gone sour, his parents advised him to turn to the more theoretical sciences. Today, Sergei Yakovenko's field of interest is as theoretical as can be -- he is a professor in the Mathematics Department at the Weizmann Institute.
 
"Joining a children's summer math program at Moscow University at the age of 13 was the turning point of my life," he says. From there, he was assigned to a high school specializing in math. "Mathematics was the only profession that was both apolitical and promising in the Soviet Union in those days," says Yakovenko. "An artist, for instance, had from time to time to paint farmers ploughing fields, Lenin visiting a village, or subjects of that kind. On the other hand, working in the experimental sciences was possible in only a few well-funded institutions, most of them related to the military in some way or another. So what was left were the theoretical sciences."
 
But even in the seemingly pure field of math, not all were free to roam. Jews were not admitted to Moscow University because they were considered inherently treacherous. Since his papers and name did not disclose his religion, Sergei gained admittance. But as some suspicions remained, he had to undergo a six-hour examination at the blackboard, instead of the usual 15-minute one. Anna, Sergei's wife, did not even apply to Moscow University, for she had studied at a school known for its prominent Jewish attendance; all of its students were regarded as "potentially Jewish" and there was no chance of their being admitted.
 
"A most common reason for expulsion from the university was telling jokes," says Sergei, who professes to have told quite a number of them himself (after checking that there were no potential informers around). He gives an example of a joke that could ruin a career: "During one of the military parades at Red Square, Kremlin doctors succeed in bringing back to life three war generals: Adolf Hitler, Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. Alexander the Great, watching the parade, says: 'If I had had such tanks I could have conquered the whole world!' Hitler says: 'If I could have had such intercontinental ballistic missiles I could have destroyed the whole world!' All the while, Napoleon sits deeply absorbed in reading Pravda. Finally, he mumbles: 'With such a newspaper, no one would have known I had lost the Battle of Waterloo.'"
 
Branded "politically illiterate" and "morally immature," Yakovenko was not accepted for Ph.D. studies at Moscow University. However, due to his perfect grade point average, he was allowed to request a position. (Jobs for the most part were decided by the government.) He found a chance job opening at the Institute of Control Sciences, where he earned his Ph.D.
 
In 1990, at the peak of perestroika, Yakovenko visited the Weizmann Institute. A year later, just after meeting Anna in Moscow, he was accepted as a researcher in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. For the whole of the following year, Sergei and Anna communicated by e-mail, until they married in 1992 in Moscow. "You could say it was love by e-mail," he says.
 
Today, they live at the Institute with their two child-ren (one from Anna's previous marriage; Sergei also has two children from a previous marriage living in Russia). Kostya, 10, who can almost always be found book in hand, wants to be an archaeologist. What will Anton, a three-year-old constantly on the move, be? "It's too soon to say," laughs Yakovenko, "but his temperament best suits a paratrooper." Anna agrees, adding, "I just hope he won't be a chemist. We all know the results of his father's first experiments!"
English
  • Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
  • Immigrant scientist
  • Mathematics
  • Sergei Yakovenko

The Weizac Days

English

First computer -- tubes and relays

 

This is a birth of the State of Israel story, and with it, the birth of the computer, and computer technology. It sounds more like a fairy tale or at the very least, a stretch of the imagination. But when you think about it, this country ­ -- and this Institute ­ -- are based on an almost embarrassing wealth of the latter.

It all began just after the War of Independence. The country was literally being built beneath the feet of a country lacking in just about everything. Israel needed housing. It needed roads and an infrastructure. It also needed to absorb a flood of hundreds of thousands of immigrants. What it lacked in the material it made up for in a vision, the Zionist vision.

At the helm was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first President of the State and forward-thinking head of the Weizmann Institute. Fortunately, his personal Zionist drive was inclusive of the sciences. While Israel was struggling to establish something as basic as food production, Weizmann had the foresight ­ -- some would say audacity ­ -- to engage $50,000, or one-fifth of the Institute's budget, to build a computer. Why the urgency? To unravel the mysteries of theoretical physics, of course.

First imperative: Bring together the world's most brilliant Jewish minds to design the computer. Second: Find the parts to build it. Third: Be patient, because it's going to take a long, long time.

"Today, people talk about a computer for every child in the classroom," says Gerald Estrin, one of those brilliant minds. A former head of the Computer Science Department at UCLA, Estrin (Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin), was in Israel for a conference on the subject. "Say 'computer' and people think of Bill Gates. Things were different then." Indeed.

The story begins at Princeton University in the mid-1940s. The Applied Mathematics Department included Albert Einstein and other leading physicists of that era. Among them were two famed professors. One was John von Neumann, considered by many as the inventor and builder of the first electronic computer as we know it today. The other was Chaim Pekeris, a Lithuanian Jew, whose domain was computational methods for solving physical problems, and who was one of the first serious users of computers for scientific calculations.

In case you ever wondered what Einstein thought about computers, the answer is: not much. Einstein raised a skeptical brow; computers were in their experimental stage and very expensive, he argued. In the end, Einstein, who also sat on the advisory committee of the Institute, was finally persuaded to give a seal of approval to Pekeris' bold proposal to build an electronic computer at the Weizmann Institute, akin to the von Neumann machine.

In 1945, Pekeris (Ph.D., Theoretical Geophysics, MIT), was asked by the Weizmann Institute to establish a Department of Applied Mathematics. Pekeris' one condition: the building of a computer at the Institute, similar to the one he'd worked on at Princeton. Pekeris approached two colleagues from Princeton, Estrin and Ephraim Frei, an Israeli physicist. Would they be willing to join the group in Israel?

Estrin and his wife, Thelma, also an electrical engineer, came on board, literally. They arrived on a ship carrying immigrants from North Africa. Their daughter Judy, born at the Institute, is now a famous executive in the computer industry.

Estrin recalls that after meeting with leading Israeli scientists at Weizmann, "My impression was that except for Pekeris, they thought it ridiculous to build a computer in Israel. And we soon learned that I was not to 'help' the project but, rather, to take charge and be its director."

And where do you put the director of an important project that will later revolutionize the world? In three rooms of the basement of the Ziskind Building.

Pekeris was joined by Micha Kedem, an Israeli electrical engineer (who later joined IBM Israel). Together they roamed the streets of Tel Aviv in search of the parts needed to construct a tube tester. Sometimes the duo improvised. When their work required precision machinery, there was always the shop which produced fans and bicycle parts, owned by recent immigrants from Bulgaria.

Next on base was Zvi Riesel, who'd been in charge of the Israel Defense Forces radar workshop. How did he hear about the Weizmann job? "I saw an advertisement in the newspaper saying the Institute is looking for people to build an electronic computer."

A herd of young mathematicians-cum-olim were next. Phillip Rabinowitz, who'd worked on the Whirlwind Computer project, and who went on to the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, began by giving courses on programming at Weizmann. His students would eventually become Israel's first crop of computer experts.

Another new immigrant was Hans Jarosch. Jarosch (Ph.D., Aeronautical Engineering, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London), had just finished three years in the Israel Air Force. He was assigned the writing of application programs.

As the computer was nearing completion, Estrin and his wife returned to the U.S. Shortly after their departure, WEIZAC performed its first calculation, in October 1955. By early 1958, WEIZAC was put into full operation. In 1963, the Estrins came back for a brief visit to Israel, to attend a retirement and a birth. WEIZAC was being put out to pasture as a new generation of computer, the GOLEM, was about to be launched.

Estrin recalls: "Remarkable changes in Israel were evident. New roads, new buildings, new people, new problems. Before the start of the WEIZAC project there were no digital electronic computers in Israel. No electronic digital engineers. No programmers and no support personnel.

"The WEIZAC people succeeded in creating the technological know-how necessary for Israel to play a strong role in the information revolution."
 
 
English
  • Chaim Weizmann
  • Computer Science and Applied Mathematics›Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
  • Mathematics
  • WEIZAC
Yes

State of the Chart

English

Prof. David Harel wrote the industry standard

It is unusual for theoretical mathematicians to indulge in brain surgery, and certainly not recommended without prior training. "I was trying to open up engineers' skulls and mess around to see how they think." The accent here is on "see." Thus, the Statecharts visual language was born.


Professor David Harel is one of three recipients of the first Prime Minister's Prize for Software, awarded for his Statecharts language. The concept allows engineers and designers to visually describe the workings of complex systems; it's become the standard for computerized engineering projects worldwide.

In 1983, Harel was comfortably installed as a tenured faculty member in the Institute's Department of Applied Mathematics after completing degrees at Bar-Ilan and Tel Aviv Universities, with a Ph.D. from MIT ­ earned in an as-yet unrivaled MIT record of one year and eight months.

When Israel Aircraft Industries called with an urgent request for help with the Lavi fighter jet project, Harel jumped at the chance. Apparently, there was a communications breakdown between the aircraft designers and the subcontractors charged with building parts for the bird. A totally new approach was desperately needed to cut down on the mammoth 1,000-page instruction manual, to increase clarity and simplicity. For a complex system such as an airplane, "There are zillions of scenarios and you can't just list them all and expect people to understand and go from there. I would ask 'deep and profound' questions like 'What happens if I press this button?'"

Sometimes they couldn't respond; many issues hadn't been previously raised. Harel took notes, simplifying what he saw, read and heard around him, developing his own generic descriptive language.

While writing and working at the mathematics of these descriptions, Harel was also adding illustrations. "I would doodle on the side. I'd tell them, 'Actually, what you are saying is we have this and this.' The pictures started to become more elaborate. Gradually the text became less important and we simply stopped using it."

Statecharts' popularity snowballed through word-of-mouth reports and the lectures Harel began delivering upon acknowledging the originality of his own language. He started publishing on the subject in the scientific literature. The next step was the setting up of a private company in 1984 when he and his colleagues developed Statemate, a sophisticated Statecharts-based software tool for engineers to simulate complex systems on computer.

Harel has continued refining Statecharts. A second software tool, Rhapsody, was released in early 1997. Statecharts' place in the history books is now assured with its status as one of the three basic components of a new software development approach called Unified Modeling Language (UML). UML has recently been announced as the industry standard for object-oriented analysis and design.

Statecharts can be thought of as the visual punch behind the majority of computerized engineering projects, from aircraft to cellular telephones, BMWs to the Pathfinder Mars probe. "I even heard recently," laughs Harel, "that it's being used to design the controller for flushing toilets on Lufthansa aircraft!" What greater compliment could there be for an amateur brain surgeon?
 
Math & Computer Science
English
  • Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
  • Computer Science and Applied Mathematics›Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
  • David Harel

Taking the Dis Out of Disability

English

Tailored solutions

 

When creative minds work together day-by-day and side-by-side, they just can't help but brainstorm creative solutions for the rest of us. In this instance, a group of Weizmann Institute professionals are quietly revolutionizing the field of products for the physically challenged.

The men whose talents combine to make life easier for those in physical need are the former head of the Scientific Services Department, Danny Barak, together with a group of technicians, including Yaacov Saranga in planning and draftsmanship; Yoel Halaf in welding; Benyamin Dado in machining, and others.

The action takes place at the Institute's technical workshops. This is the address that oversees the planning, building and maintenance of the sophisticated equipment requirements of the Institute's 300 scientists. Since 1974, their abilities have also been applied to assisting the disabled world.

The project was born when an Institute neurologist made an informal request for a device to ease the life of one of his patients, a young man injured in the Yom Kippur War. It's continued on an ad hoc basis ever since. That's two decades of supplying hardware solutions to people's disability problems.

In 1995, Professor Haim Harari, President of the Weizmann Institute, formalized the arrangement, placed it under the auspices of Daniel Tamari, the head of the Research Services Division, and bestowed upon it a title, the Technology and Accessibility for the Disabled Project. Support for this dynamic, purposeful corner of the Institute is derived from special donor funding.

The assistive devices created within the project give the disabled the freedom of movement, comfort and protection most of us take for granted: a wand that allows the wheelchair­bound to reach elevator buttons; a method that allows a person on crutches to simultaneously carry a small suitcase; an emergency fix-it kit that allows the blind to repair the all-essential guide stick and to reach home, safely; a fold-up rain shield that gives the physically challenged the ability to move from a car seat to a wheelchair without dampening the chair's seat cushion.

The group reworked a motion detector originally designed to deter burglars; in its second incarnation, it sits over the bed of an Alzheimer's patient in constant need of supervision. The device now alerts family members if the patient gets up during the night.

On several occasions the team has been asked to create a hospital call button for immobilized patients incapable of movement. In one case, they placed a wireless doorbell at the nurses' station linked to a small transmitter at the patient's bedside. Wired through a hollow tube with a micro-switch, it could then be activated by the war veteran ­ with the tip of his tongue. These and other devices have resulted from their creative activity.

When asked, the understated gentlemen who make life more liveable are all humility; they claim their work is not complex. In fact, it takes a mighty amount of brainstorming to invent the innovative appliances. Yet these public-spirited problem-solvers simply shrug and explain that their investment of time and materials is minimal, and that the equipment and tools are already available in the well-equipped workshop.

Yet for the recipients, like an injured soldier paralyzed in war and assisted in his breathing through a tube placed at the base of his throat, calling a nurse could mean the difference between life and death.

Commercial product designers for the physically challenged deal with problems of the disabled in general, and may take years to develop a tailor-made product. For Messrs. Barak, Saranga, Halaf, Dado et al., addressing specific challenges is all in a day's work.
English
  • Haim Harari

Past, Present & Future Perfect

English

Prof. Ephraim Katzir. One big family

 

In May 1948, a young scientist named Dr. Ephraim Katzir arrived at the gates of the Weizmann Institute. Interface recently asked Katzir to articulate how he views the Institute's present and future from a personal, 50-year perspective.

Children on summer vacation are, no doubt, the most joyful beings on earth, doing nothing save that which gives them pleasure.

Prof. Ephraim Katzir, for instance, smilingly remembers one childhood summer in Jerusalem: "My brother Aharon and I found a book that contained 1,000 math problems, on the subject of planimetry, and we made up our minds to solve them on our own." Another childhood memory: "We loved chemistry lessons. The chemistry teacher at the Gymnasium of Rehavia was somewhat absent-minded and almost every experiment would terminate in a small explosion or fire. Eager to save our lives, we would take advantage of the fact that the class was on the ground floor and would jump out of the windows to our freedom."

Children who solve math problems for fun grow up and find themselves, by nature, in the university. But in the 1930s, an immense struggle to found the State of Israel was in its critical stages. The brothers Aharon and Ephraim Katchalsky (Katzir) had to split their time between scientific and underground activities.

The young Ephraim Katzir began his military career as a messenger boy, conveying information between Haganah (the main underground movement) officers. Later on, he advanced to the position of commanding officer of an infantry troop. He became aware of a different aspect of chemistry's crucial importance as he learned about explosive materials. During that period, he received an invitation from Ernst Bergmann, Scientific Director of what was then called the Sieff Institute, to come join a new research team which had emerged from within the orange groves of Rehovot. On the way to Rehovot, Katzir paid a visit to Professor Hermann Mark of Brooklyn, chairman of the scientific committee which planned the Weizmann Institute. Upon his return to Israel in 1948, he was kept busy in military R&D, in what was to become the science force of a burgeoning Israel.

Only after working to these ends did he return to his basic research, which, at a later date, would gain him world fame. The focus of his research was proteins, natural polymers, which are the building blocks of all animals and plants. Proteins have a highly complex structure which includes long, twisted chains containing sequences of up to 20 different amino acids. To facilitate the study of proteins' properties, Professor Katzir developed simple synthetic models, containing just one or two different amino acids. These models, polyamino acids, which were developed in the 1950s and continued to be used through the 60s and 70s, were an important tool in determining the spatial structure of protein molecules and contributed to the cracking of the genetic code.

This understanding of the polyamino acid properties, and their immunological properties in particular, led, among other things, to Weizmann scientists' development of Copaxone (Copolymer 1). This drug is now used world­ wide to treat people suffering from multiple sclerosis.

In another study, Professor Katzir developed a method of binding enzymes to a variety of surfaces and molecules. The enzymes catalyze (speed up) many different chemical processes and their bonding qualities enable them to be reused time and again. The enzyme-adsorbing techniques form the basis of a tremendous variety of processes in the food and drug industry.

"The Institute was small then," recalls Professor Katzir. "You knew everyone. Among us was a genuine feeling of closeness and true friendship. We lived, worked and felt as sons and daughters in one family, the Institute family. Once, when the Institute's administrator, Meyer Weisgal, was planning a trip out of the country to raise money, he invited us all to his office and said: 'I am going to raise money for you. In order to do that, it is essential that I make impressive promises of many kinds and forms. And when I return, you will have to make all of these promises come true.'

"Standing now at a distance of fifty years, I can clearly see that we did carry out most of our hopes and aspirations. As for the future, I listen to the hopes and ideals of our young scientists, and I am sure that they too will fulfill their promises and will enjoy the satisfaction obtained from their accomplishments, just as we did."
English
  • Copaxone®
  • Ephraim Katzir

A Marriage Made in Lab Heaven

English

Girshovich and Bochkareva. Little division between science and marriage

 

"In 1971, a masters student came to work in my lab in Siberia.  It was Elena.In 1976 I married her," says a beaming Professor Alex Girshovich of the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry Department. Dr. Elena Bochkareva, sitting opposite him, smiles demurely. The two have been working together now for almost twenty-seven years, and, as well as making significant strides in their field of biological chemistry, have raised their two children.

Originally from the Ukraine, Girshovich found himself in Siberia when the Soviet government established a "science town" named Academgorodok, near Novosibirsk.

In Siberia, Girshovich stumbled upon a whole new path, scientifically speaking. When molecular biologist friends suggested he work with them, he changed direction, making the move which shaped his career. At that time, Elena was studying for her masters at nearby Novosibirsk University. Originally from the so-called Jewish Autonomous Region (the Russian Far East), she had moved to Siberia with her family as a small child. When she walked into the lab where her future husband worked, her initial thoughts were not of romance. "When I first saw him, I thought, 'This is a real scientist!'" she laughs.

When Girshovich was invited to organize a research group in 1972 at the Biological Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Pushkino, just outside Moscow, he explained to the authorities at the Center that he couldn't do it alone. "I asked permission to bring at least one of the guys from my Siberian group," he says. Elena Bochkareva was the "guy."

Four years later they married, and in 1977 Bochkareva gave birth to their son, Simon, currently serving in the tank division of the Israel Defense Forces. A daughter, 14-year-old Yana, followed.

For the couple, it's "science first, then private life." For Alex and Elena, there's little division between the two. They take their science home with them, discussing work over the dining table. "You have to discuss things with someome who understands the field. I think our approach when we work together is good for science."

Their major achievement came in 1987 when they became two of the pioneers in the development of a new field in molecular and cell biology. The breakthrough was the identification of "molecular chaperones." These special proteins are present in any cell and are crucial for cell survival. They ensure that the assembly of other proteins into functionally-active structures occurs correctly.

"For Russian Jews, Israel was always a dream," says Girshovich. "On February 6, 1992, we came to Israel, to the Weizmann Institute. That was the best decision we ever made. We feel that if the whole of Israel is like our department, then it is the best country in the world."
English
  • Biological Chemistry
  • Immigrant scientist