Israelit, Mark (1928-2015)

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Mark Israelit was an Israeli physicist, who specialized in relativity.

Mark Israelit was born on February 1928 in Lithuania.

His family escaped with him to USSR and has been in a labor camp in Siberia during the Second World War.

He married his wife Mila in 1956 in Lithuania, and his two children were born in 1957 and 1965.

He got his M.Sc. Degree in physics in 1952 at the Latvian State University in Riga, Latvia, but after studying further in Moscow under the supervision of Professor Lev Landau (1956/7), he was neither allowed to complete his studies for Ph.D. in USSR, nor to immigrate to Israel, so he worked in USSR as a lecturer of physics.

In 1971 he and his family immigrated to Israel.

He worked as a lecturer in physics.

He worked on his dissertation for his Ph.D. Degree under the supervision of Professor Nathan Rosen (who many years earlier worked with Albert Einstein on the EPR paper (1935)), at the Technion, Haifa, Israel.

In 1975 Israelit completed his thesis on:

"Equations of motion in the bi-metric theory of gravitation."

From 1976 he taught relativity, electrodynamics, waves, optics, thermodynamics, cosmology, elementary particles and general physics, and modern physics to students at the University of Haifa-Oranim, Tivon, Israel as a senior lecturer until 1997, when he retired.

Also from 1976, he published more than 100 papers in English on relativity in international scientific journals, many of them on Weyl-Dirac theory and Wesson Induced Matter Theory but also on many other fundamental relativistic subjects. See the list in TXT or HTM of his publications in the English language. Mark Israelit’s works paved the way to investigate applications of integrable Weyl-Dirac theory, i.e., thin disk models (Vieira and Letelier, 2015, GRG) that may represent spiral galaxies in Weyl-Dirac Universe (Israelit, 1999, his book).

Mark Israelit’s papers in English were published in Physical Review, Astrophysical Journal, General Relativity and Gravitation, Foundations of Physics, Astrophysics and Space Science, and other scientific journals, as well as in proceedings and arXiv. He knew also German, Russian, and Hebrew, and published a few additional papers in these languages too.

At least 44 of his papers were cited, one of which at least 68 times.

About 15 of his papers were in cooperation with his former supervisor Professor Nathan Rosen (Their common papers started in 1985), and he also published additional papers on Rosen's theories of relativity. This fruitful cooperation continued until Rosen's death on December 1995. Their last common paper was published on May 1996. In February 1996 Israelit also published his paper/obituary on Professor Nathan Rosen’s scientific work and contribution to science in Foundations of Physics Letters.

Israelit spent his sabbatical years during the years 1985-6, 1992-3, and 1996 as a visiting professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany, teaching gravitation, cosmological models, and alternative theories of gravitation, while researching magnetic monopoles and other relativistic subjects. About five of his papers were in cooperation with scientists from the University of Konstanz. He also spent half a year as visiting professor in each of the universities the University of Goettingen, Germany (1986) and the University of Victoria, Canada (1993).

Among the co-authors of Israelit were also Fred Cooperstock (Canada), and Heinz Dehnen, Bernhard Rose, and F. Ghaboussi (Germany).

In 1999 Mark Israelit published his comprehensive book:

"The Weyl-Dirac theory and our universe." See the first item in TXT or HTM

Mark Israelit gave more than a score of colloquium talks at universities in Israel, Germany, and Canada, as well as many lectures at international conferences, a few of which were in the international conferences of the International Alexander Friedmann Seminars on Gravitation and Cosmology. He lectured also in many other international conferences, including Marcel Grossmann international conferences and General Relativity and Gravitation international conferences, and more. Few of these international lectures were published later, two of which were on subjects of Weyl-Dirac theory. He gave additional scores of lectures at various universities in Israel as well as in other countries.

Mark Israelit was a reviewer and referee in leading scientific journals such as Mathematical Reviews, General Relativity and Gravitation, Foundations of Physics, Astrophysical Journal, Astrophysics and Space Science, and Classical and Quantum Gravity, and also in the Basic Research Foundation of Israel Academy of Sciences.

Wikipedia notes Mark Israelit as a physicist who worked on torsional Weyl-Dirac electrodynamics, quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology (cosmic egg model, together with Nathan Rosen).

Mark Israelit’s biographical records were published in a few international references, including:

The Marquis "Who's Who in the World," editions 16^th 1999, 17^th 2000, 18^th 2001, 19^th 2002,

The Marquis "Who's Who in Science and Engineering," 6^th edition 2002-2003,

"2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 20^th Century"

and

"2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 21^st Century,"

both by IBC International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England.

Mark Israelit passed away on January 2015 after a long disease.

He was survived by his wife Mila, two children, and seven grandchildren.

In June 2015 Mark Israelit's memory was honored at the seminar plenary session of the
9^th conference of International Alexander Friedmann Seminars on Gravitation and Cosmology, in front of about 100 scientist participants. Professor Mostepanenko, the chairperson of the first opening plenary session on Monday, 22^nd June 2015 announced the sad news that Mark Israelit passed away at the end of January 2015, at the age of almost 87. The chairperson mentioned that Mark Israelit worked for many years in Technion and in the University of Haifa. He was the well-known expert in Weyl-Dirac gravity, the author of the book on Weyl-Dirac gravity, and about 100 scientific papers. The chairperson added that for many years Mark Israelit was the close friend and coauthor of Einstein's collaborator Professor Nathan Rosen, and participated in several Alexander Friedmann International Seminars, and was a member of their Organizing Committees. Then the memory of Mark Israelit was honored by standing up of all the participants and a minute of silence.

END OF SHORT BIOGRAPHY

In 2008 Mark Israelit's family prepared a detailed personal biography presentation with many photographs, and uploaded it to Youtube, where it is available free for all at the address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cthQPbzLre4

My opinion (N.B.A.): If one considers Nathan Rosen as one of the scientific sons of Albert Einstein, then Mark Israelit is one of the scientific grandchildren of Albert Einstein.

In Mark Israelit's memory, attached is Mark Israelit's abstracted opinion on Friedmann equations and the expansion of the Universe that Mark Israelit has written especially for me in 2012: RTF link

The pages on Mark Israelit on this site with permission from his widow Mila Israelit.

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