Wednesday, January 11, 2012

What are Jews Good For in Science and Discovery? - by Planck's Constant

Note: Grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy reading Bernie's list of Jewish accomplishments in the field of Science and Discovery ... then, ask me again, why I support Israel.  Perhaps it is because the Israelis contribute to so much to the world and are so gracious in sharing their discoveries with all of mankind.  Don't try to compare this list with that of the Muslims ... you know, the group Obama claims has done so much for "America".  You will be sadly disappointed; however, it would be a great exercise for Obama to come up with his own list.

Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Planck's Constant
January 8, 2012
by Bernie

My third article in the series What Good are Jews concerns itself with Jewish contributions to the fields of Science and Discovery. I am not writing the complete encyclopedia of Jewish endeavors in these subjects so what follows is a rather brief compendium.

Science and Discovery

  • The majority of American Nobel Prizes: won by Jews [Jews have won in over 68% of all award years].
  • The majority of Russian Nobel Prizes: won by Jews [Planck's Constant]
  • The majority of Polish Nobel Prizes: won by Jews [Planck's Constant]
  • More than two-thirds of Hungarian Nobel Prizes: won by Jews [Planck's Constant]
  • Before Hitler chased out or killed most of his country's Jews, almost a third of German Laureates were Jews. [Planck's Constant]
  • Although Jews are a mere half of one percent of the population of the UK, they have garnered 14% of the 93 Nobel Prizes in science and literature awarded to the UK. [Planck's Constant]
  • 51% of the recipients of the Wolf Prize in Physics (one of the most prestigious international awards in physics): Jews [Jinfo.org].
  • 40% of the combined membership of the divisions of physics and applied physical sciences of the US National Academy of Sciences: Jews [Ibid].
  • 60% of the twenty-five most influential physicists of the 20th century: Jews, viz., Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Max Born, Hans Bethe, Felix Bloch, Lev Landau, I. I. Rabi, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Murray Gell-Mann, Steven Weinberg, and Edward Witten.
  • Physicists who dominated the development of nuclear power: Jews, viz., Lise Meitner, Otto Frisch, Niels Bohr, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Sir Rudolf Peierls, Hans Bethe, Victor Weisskopf, John von Neumann, Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, Alvin Weinberg, Hyman Rickover, Yuli Khariton, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Yakov Zeldovich.
  • The discoverer of electromagnetic waves: a Jew - Heinrich Hertz.
  • The transistor was invented and patented in the 1920s by: a Jew - Julius Edgar Lilienfeld.
  • The first working laser: a Jew - Theodore Maiman.
  • Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the physical process underlying the invention of MRI diagnostic imaging: discovered by a Jew - I. I. Rabi.
  • The atomic clock, an essential component in such systems as GPS, was proposed by Rabi in 1944 and first demonstrated by Harold Lyons in 1949: Jews.
  • polaroid One 600-classic camera
    Polaroid One 600-classic camera
    Photo Credit: Gianni
    The following inventions: horn-actuated traffic lights, wireless remote control for televisions, the electric meter, draughtsmen's tools, remote controlled cardiac catheter, scaif (a diamond polishing wheel), gramophone, oral contraceptives, antihistamines, anti-leukemia drugs, zovirax, Viewdata, Uzi (sub-machine gun), photoplotter, photocutter, Gerber variable scale, Gestetner duplicator, Kodachrome, the shopping cart, vinyl records, Sensitometry, Goldberg wedge, Kinamo, Microdot, railway signals, the MiG, vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague, camera phone, forerunner of the fax machine, biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), "the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription" (the process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA), spread-spectrum radio technology, Polaroid camera, theory of superfluidity, the density matrix method in quantum mechanics, the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of second order phase transitions, the Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, and the two-component theory of neutrinos, Astronomical ring-dial by means of which solar and stellar altitudes can be measured, Mobile gasoline combustion engine, Interferometer, the first sports bra Jogbra, scanning electron microscope, Dirigible Zeppelin, Katyusha, pioneering research on the blood-brain barrier, Blue jeans, nuclear fission reactor, Patent Electron Microscope, sound-on-film technology, streptomycin, Industrial fermentation, radio-immunoassay, Esperanto, Zel'dovich Mechanism: Jews.
  • The isolation and development of penicillin: Jew - Sir Ernst Chain
  • The invention of local anesthesia by Carl Koller and the discovery of Novocaine by Alfred Einhorn: Jews.
  • The discovery of the ABO and other human blood groups and of the Rh factor by Karl Landsteiner: Jew.
  • The isolation of cortisone by Tadeus Reichstein: Jew.
  • The invention of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) by Charles Gerhardt: Jew.
  • The discovery of neurotransmitters by Otto Loewi: Jew.
  • The development of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin: Jews
  • The development of the Hepatitis-B vaccine by Baruch Blumberg and Irving Millman: Jews.
  • The co-discoverer of interferon Alick Isaacs: Jew
  • The invention of cancer chemotherapy by Louis Goodman, Alfred Gilman, and Sidney Farber: Jews.
  • The discovery of retroviruses and their associated reverse transcriptase enzyme by David Baltimore and Howard Temin: Jews.
  • The development of AZT, protease inhibitors, and other drugs used in the treatment of AIDS by Jerome Horwitz, Samuel Broder, and Irving Sigal: Jews.
  • The co-invention of monoclonal antibodies by César Milstein: Jew.
  • The breaking of the genetic code by Marshall Nirenberg: Jew.
  • The co-invention of gene splicing by Stanley N. Cohen: Jew.
  • The invention of the sonogram by Robert Rines: Jew.
  • The invention of the flexible endoscope by Basil Hirschowitz: Jew.
  • The co-invention of LASIK eye surgery by Samuel Blum: Jew.
  • The invention of the cardiac defibrillator, external pacemaker, and cardiac monitor by Paul Zoll: Jew.
  • The invention of the Heimlich Maneuver by Henry Heimlich: Jew.
Sadly I only have one lifetime and so I stop here, but just so there is no misunderstanding, I could go on listing significant Jewish contributions in science and discovery for millions of pages without running out. I use the word 'millions' here sparingly.