Tova Feldmann: Science Celebration

63 years in Givat Ram

Chemistry Seminar Room, Givat Ram, Jerusalem,

November 3 2019

9:30-10:00 Get together

10:00-10:20 Tova Feldmann and Ronnie Kosloff: Introduction to the Science of Tova Feldmann.

Symposium: Quantum Thermodynamics

14:00-14:45 Lajos Diosi: Notes on Fisher distance in statistics, thermodynamics, quantum informatics.

14:45-15:30 Jose P. Palao: Internal components of continuous devices.

15:30-15:45 Break

15:45-16:30 Amikam Levy: A quasiprobability distribution for heat fluctuations in the quantum regime.

16:30-17:15 Avinoam Ben-Shaul: A simple theory vs. serious simulation.

17:15-17:45 Raam Uzdin: Replacing the thermodynamic energy-information paradigm by the principle of global passivity. 

17:45-18:00 Tova Feldmann and Ronnie Kosloff: Concluding remarks.

Tova's words:

Firstly I want to tell you that the idea for this special day was all from Professor Ronnie Kosloff. He not only had the idea but he also organized the whole day. I know that he does not like thanks but I want to publically thank him for all he has done. Secondly, I want to thank all of the speakers who agreed to speak today. It touches me deeply and reminds me of the times we have worked together. And of course, I want to thank all of you, including my brother and niece, who have come from near and far to participate in this celebration day.

I think of myself as a lucky person because of three reasons:

1. Almost all my life I did what I wanted to do
2. I did it with people whom I liked
3. I did what I did in a place where I wanted to be

Of course from the above general statement, one great exception is my time in the ghetto in Budapest. On the other hand, I learned there something about my mother's character, which I appreciate more and more as time goes by. I was 15 years old then, today I am 90.

What my mother did was the following: Our flat happened to be inside the walls of the ghetto, where all the Jews, who survived unimaginable tortures (which I don't want to speak about today), were packed. Instead of the 5 of us (mother plus 4 children, because our father was taken away forever some weeks before), there were more than 20 people crammed in that small space. My mother divided what we had so that everyone could eat something. I remember that before the Soviet army liberated us, we had a small quantity of flour, which would be just enough to thicken something which we called 'soup', that would last for 5 days. So we must have had some drinking water but definitely no water to keep us clean. I remember we all had lice, not only in our hair, but also in our clothes.

And as the bombs were falling, it was an interesting feeling, as Jews that we were happy to see the aircraft in spite of the fact that they could have killed us. Their presence, was for us a physical sign for the hope of freedom.Then, when the Soviet soldiers came, they tore off the yellow Star of David from our clothes and they asked us for an axe as we were the last building before the wooden ghetto wall. They broke down the wall, we walked out along a carpet made of broken glass pieces – WE WERE FREE! It was probably the greatest experience in my life.

All of that is a prologue to telling you some words about my 63 lucky years that I spent since 1956 in this beautiful place. Students come and go, teachers come and go, but what is constant here is the Garden of Eden called Givat Ram.

In 1956 the late Professor Gavriel Stein accepted me as a lab assistant by telling me the following: "You will be responsible for the operation of the mass spectrometer and the X-rays. Besides that, you can do whatever you wish". Slowly, slowly I finished the requirements of the physics department including completing my Masters degree. The subject of the Masters was: Photoionization of organic molecules in solid systems 'glasses'. The masters was in physics, so my official supervisor was Dr. Aryeh Weinreb from the physics department, but as I was working in the Physical Chemistry department, Professor Gavriel Stein was also an official supervisor BUT my "real" guide and inspiration was Jehosua Jortner.

Not much after I finished my Masters, Professor Maurice Cohen arrived to the department and soon after his arrival, I started to work with him on my PhD. The subject of my PhD thesis was: "Bounds to Quantum Mechanical quantities". I was glad to work with Maurice not only because of the subject, which was a great mathematical challenge, but also I was hoping that by working with a person who was born in London and studied in Oxford, I would improve my English. But, Maurice had just made Aliya, and wanted to practice his Hebrew, which by the way, was perfect and could only have been spoiled.

Maurice and I worked together for almost 30 years, and during the second half of it Brian Burrows joined us and we were three. Brian and Maurice continue to work together till today. We did many computations on Upper and Lower bounds to quantum mechanical quantities. Most of our results showed that they were better than the existing ones. I published at least one paper with almost every one of the Professors of the Theoretical Chemistry department.

When I officially retired, I started to work with Professor Ronnie Kosloff. At the beginning parallel to Maurice Cohen, but after some years I felt that it was too much for me. The subject with Ronnie was to search the basic properties of four stroke heat engines. We asked fundamental questions about the operation of those engines, for example the origin of friction, the behavior of the engine when approaching absolute zero, etc.

It took some time for me to decide which area to focus on but when I decided to continue working on the engines, I knew it was the correct decision. I spoke with Maurice, told him that we had a great working history together and that the theory of engines is new for me and I would like to continue working on this subject. It was about 20 years ago and since then we developed a good understanding of the four stroke engine's operation.

I have to mention that at the very beginning, I worked for about 5 years with the late Professor Avener Treinin and my first 4 publications are with him. My most recent publication was written with Professor Jose Pascual Palao Gonzalez, from Tenerife, Spain, which is a chapter in the book Thermodynamics in the Quantum Regime, which appeared at the end of 2018, Springer Edition.

Now that I have not just officially, but actually retired, I have been translating from Hungarian to English the letters of my beloved late, dear sister Daisy Judith, which were written before she died, more than 40 years ago. I am doing this to pass on her spirit to her daughters, my nieces, Linda, who is with us today and Anita who is in Australia.

So you see that looking back on my 63 years in this place where I wanted to be, with the people who I have liked and doing what I wanted to do, I can honestly say, I feel blessed and lucky.

Thank you.

.

Link to Galery