Rehovoth Conference on Nuclear Structure

From September 8 to 15 an international gathering of physicists took place for the first time in the small new state of Israel. The 220 participants registered at the conference included 155 guests from countries ranging alphabetically from Argentina to Yugoslavia. The choice of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovoth, Israel, as the location of the International Conference on Nuclear Structure was undoubtedly in recognition of Israel as a center of that particular kind of nuclear research which has made the name Racah familiar in laboratories throughout the world. However, in his opening address to the conference, Professor Racah found other links between nuclear structure and the State of Israel. The first Zionist Congress, said Racah, was held at about the same time as the discovery of radioactivity; the Balfour Declaration announcing British Government support for a Jewish National Home in Palestine was promulgated at about the same time as the discovery of artificial radioactivity; and in 1948 the State of Israel was born together with the shell model. To avoid being accused of partisanship with regard to nuclear models, however, he pointed out that one of the distinctive features of Israel were the collective settlements.