Which famous scientist was offered the position of first President of Israel, but turned it down saying that he had no head for problems?
"as president, and Chaim Herzog (previously head of military intelligence and Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations) succeeded him as Israel's sixth president. Likud's Moshe Katsav's victory over Labor's Shimon Peres in 2000 (by secret ballot) was an upset. Albert Einstein, a Jew but not an Israeli citizen, was offered the presidency in 1952 but turned it down, stating ""I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and"
"be followed, he suggested, by a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology, to fight the various ongoing epidemics such as malaria, which he called an ""evil"" that was undermining a third of the country's development. Establishing an Oriental Studies Institute, to include language courses given in both Hebrew and Arabic, for scientific exploration of the country and its historical monuments, was also important. Chaim Weizmann later became Israel's first president. Upon his death while in office in November 1952 and at the urging of Ezriel Carlebach, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a"
"president of Israel. The following persons held the position of scientific director: Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ""Machon Weizmann LeMada"") is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and postgraduate degrees in the natural and exact sciences. It is a multidisciplinary research center, with around 3,800 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and scientific, technical, and administrative staff working at the Institute. As of 2018, 6 Nobel laureates and 3 Turing Award"
"the fourth President of Israel. He received 66 votes to 41 cast in favour of his opponent Ephraim Urbach and he assumed office on 24 May 1973. In November 1977, he hosted President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in the first ever official visit of an Arab head of state. In 1978, he declined to stand for a second term due to his wife's illness, and was succeeded by Yitzhak Navon. After stepping down as President, he returned to his scientific work. Ephraim Katzir Ephraim Katzir ( ""Efrayim Katsir""; 16 May 1916 – 30 May 2009) was an Israeli biophysicist and"
"1952 Israeli presidential election An election to choose the second President of Israel was held in the Knesset on 8 December 1952 following the death of the Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann on 9 November. Between Weizmann's death and the winner of the election, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, taking office on 16 December, Knesset speaker Yosef Sprinzak served as acting president. There were four candidates: Before the election, Albert Einstein was spoken to by Abba Eban about the possibility of becoming President. He declined, explaining, ""I have neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings."" Three rounds of"
"the date of the alleged meeting but allows that he might have met Weizmann in early 1946 instead. Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( """", ""Khaim Veytsman""; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as President of the Zionist Organization and later as the first President of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann convinced the United States government to recognize the newly formed state of Israel. Weizmann was also a biochemist who developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone through"
"Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( """", ""Khaim Veytsman""; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as President of the Zionist Organization and later as the first President of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann convinced the United States government to recognize the newly formed state of Israel. Weizmann was also a biochemist who developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone through bacterial fermentation. His acetone production method was of great importance for the British war industry during World War"
"problematic power grids. It was designed to neutralize the maintenance issues of reciprocating engines so it had only one moving part, the rotor. A 3 kWe prototype was exhibited at the 1961 United Nations Conference on New Sources of Energy in Rome, but it failed to find commercial success. Harry Zvi Tabor Harry Zvi Tabor (March 7, 1917 – December 15, 2015) was an Israeli physicist. He is known as the father of Israeli solar energy. He is generally credited with having brought Israel's solar energy program to international prominence. Harry Zvi Tabor was born at London in 1917 to"
"The report suggested that the ""three sizes"" referred to nuclear warheads, but the deal never materialised. Backed by former minister Yossi Beilin, Peres said the allegations were untrue and based on a selective interpretation of the minutes. Former apartheid foreign minister Pik Botha, as well as various Israeli insiders and experts, also said the allegations were highly improbable. Avner Cohen, author of ""Israel and the Bomb"" and ""The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb"", said, ""Nothing in the documents suggests there was an actual offer by Israel to sell nuclear weapons to the regime in Pretoria."" Nelson Mandela first"
"Yechiel, a leading Israeli agronomist, became commander of the Israeli Air Force and also served as President of Israel. Chaim Weizmann is buried beside his wife in the garden of his home at the Weizmann estate, which is located on the grounds of Israel's science research institute named after him. Weizmann was absent from the first Zionist conference, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland, because of travel problems, but he attended each one thereafter. Beginning in 1901, he lobbied for the founding of a Jewish institution of higher learning in Palestine. Together with Martin Buber and , he presented a"
"Ephraim Katzir Ephraim Katzir ( ""Efrayim Katsir""; 16 May 1916 – 30 May 2009) was an Israeli biophysicist and Israeli Labor Party politician. He was the fourth President of Israel from 1973 until 1978. Katzir was born Efraim Katchalski, son of Yehuda and Tzila Katchalski, in Kiev, in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine). In 1925 (several publications cite 1922), he immigrated to Mandate Palestine with his family and settled in Jerusalem. In 1932, he graduated from Gymnasia Rehavia. Like his brother, Aharon, he was interested in science. He studied botany, zoology, chemistry and bacteriology at the Hebrew University of"
"mostly ceremonial post. The offer was presented by Israel's ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer ""embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons"". Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was ""deeply moved"", and ""at once saddened and ashamed"" that he could not accept it. Einstein developed an appreciation for music at an early age, and later wrote: ""If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms"
"acting President. The physics institute at the Hebrew University is named ""The Racah Institute of Physics"". In the Israeli War of Independence, Racah served as deputy commander of the Israeli forces defending Mount Scopus. Racah's research was mainly in the fields of quantum physics and atomic spectroscopy. He first devised a systematic general procedure for classifying the energy levels of open shell atoms, which remains to this day the accepted technique for practical calculations of atomic structure. This formalism was described in a monograph coauthored by his cousin Ugo Fano (""Irreducible Tensorial Sets"", 1959). Racah died at the age of"
"who first used Einstein to get his ideas about building a bomb across to the US leaders, now convinces him to join him in writing a letter to the president to do the opposite, namely not to build the bomb, in order to avoid an arms race. 68 scientists sign a petition, but that is held back by the military. U.S. President Truman is faced with four options: peace talks (which would not have worked because the US did not want the Japanese to keep their emperor), a blockade (which was thought to be cowardly), an invasion (which could cost"
"became head of the Department of Biophysics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, an institution he helped to found. In 1966–1968, Katzir was Chief Scientist of the Israel Defense Forces. His initial research centered on simple synthetic protein models, but he also developed a method for binding enzymes, which helped lay the groundwork for what is now called enzyme engineering. In 1973, Golda Meir contacted Katzir at Harvard University, asking him to accept the presidency. He hebraicized his family name to Katzir, which means 'harvest'. On 10 March 1973, Katzir was elected by the Knesset to serve as"
"rockets being built (900), and additional, weaker evidence that there were plans to develop chemical, biological and gas-filled warheads for these rockets. To gain the support of the Israeli population, the head of Mossad planted stories about sinister weapons being developed by the German scientists in Egypt. The main tactics employed by Israel against the scientists were letter bombs and abductions. Their families were threatened with violence to persuade the scientists to return to Europe. Mossad provided a small operational unit, headed by future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, but since it lacked an operational division at that time it"
"[1862–1943], Arnold Sommerfeld [1868–1951], Constantin Carathéodory [1873–1950], Albert Einstein [1879–1955], Max Born [1882–1970], George David Birkhoff [1884-1944], Hermann Weyl [1885–1955], Norbert Wiener [1894–1964], Wolfgang Pauli [1900–1958], Paul Dirac [1902–1984], Eugene Wigner [1902–1995], Andrey Kolmogorov [1903-1987], Lars Onsager [1903-1976], John von Neumann [1903–1957], Sin-Itiro Tomonaga [1906–1979], Hideki Yukawa [1907–1981], Nikolay Nikolayevich Bogolyubov [1909–1992], Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar [1910-1995], Mark Kac [1914–1984], Julian Schwinger [1918–1994], Richard Phillips Feynman [1918–1988], Irving Ezra Segal [1918–1998], Arthur Strong Wightman [1922–2013], Chen-Ning Yang [1922– ], Rudolf Haag [1922–2016], Freeman Dyson [1923– ], Martin Gutzwiller [1925–2014], Abdus Salam [1926–1996], Jürgen Moser [1928–1999], Michael Francis Atiyah [1929– ], Joel Louis"
"Katzir was head of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and a popular scientific radio show host; he was also a candidate in the upcoming Israeli presidency election. His brother, Ephraim Katzir, was elected President of Israel the following year. Because airport security was focused on the possibility of a Palestinian attack, the use of Japanese attackers took the guards by surprise. The attack has often been described as a suicide mission, but it has also been asserted that it was the outcome of a larger operation (the particulars of which remain unpublicized) that went awry. The three perpetrators—Kōzō Okamoto,"
"life-long limp, Feldenkrais decided to apply the knowledge gained from his study of physics, engineering, and martial arts to an intensive self-study of his own movement habits. When his work provided him with relief, allowing him to avoid the knee surgery, he began exploring the methods he developed on himself with a small group of people at Fairlie, including scientific colleague John Desmond Bernal and John Boyd-Orr, Nobel laureate and first president of the World Academy of Art and Science. After serving as head of electronic engineering for the Israeli Army in newly formed Israel from 1951 to 1953, Feldenkrais"
"Progressive Party during the 1948 Presidential election which also advocated a pro-Soviet and pro-Israel foreign policy. Einstein served on the Board of Governors of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In his Will of 1950, Einstein bequeathed literary rights to his writings to The Hebrew University, where many of his original documents are held in the Albert Einstein Archives. When President Chaim Weizmann died in 1952, Einstein was asked to be Israel's second president, but he declined, stating that he had ""neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings."" He wrote: ""I am deeply moved by the"
"voting were required after no candidate gained an outright majority. Peretz Bernstein dropped out after the second round, with Yitzhak Ben-Zvi elected in the third round. 1952 Israeli presidential election An election to choose the second President of Israel was held in the Knesset on 8 December 1952 following the death of the Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann on 9 November. Between Weizmann's death and the winner of the election, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, taking office on 16 December, Knesset speaker Yosef Sprinzak served as acting president. There were four candidates: Before the election, Albert Einstein was spoken to by Abba Eban"
"Maria Weizmann Maria Weizmann (; born 1893) was a sister of Israeli politician and scientist Chaim Weizmann (the first President of the State of Israel). She graduated from a university in Switzerland and worked as a doctor in Moscow from 1915. Maria Weizman and her husband V.M. Savitsky were long denied the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union by the authorities (see also refusenik). Her husband was arrested in 1949. On February 10, 1953 she was arrested in connection with the alleged Doctors' plot. Her case was handled by the GRU (as opposed to MGB as it was common),"
"his candidacy for President of Israel. Shechtman received the endorsement of the ten Members of Knesset required to run. In the elections, held on 10 June 2014, he was awarded only one vote. This led Israeli press and Israeli humorists to qualify Shechtman as ""quasi-president"" in reference to the ""quasi-scientist"" quote. Dan Shechtman Dan Shechtman (Hebrew: דן שכטמן; born January 24, 1941) is the Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, an Associate of the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, and Professor of Materials Science at Iowa State University. On April 8,"
"elected to head the post of President, he concealed his face within his mantle, refusing to show himself. He later objected adamantly before the assembly who had gathered there, eventually fleeing from their presence. The men who had gathered at that place quickly followed after him until they reached his house. Yet, their pleas and platitudes were of no avail. He would not return with them to take up the office of President of the Court. Neither would the assembly cast lots again, a fourth time, so there remained in the Court at Sana'a only one, a certain Rabbi Ibrahim,"
"Sophia Getzowa Sophia Getzowa (, 10 January 1872 (O.S.)/23 January 1872 (N. S.) - 11(12) July 1946) was a Belarusian-Israeli pathologist and scientist. She grew up in a Jewish shtetl in Belarus and during her medical studies at the University of Bern, she became engaged to Chaim Weizmann, who would become the first president of Israel. Together they worked in the Zionist movement. After a four year romance, Weizmann broke off their engagement and Getzowa returned to her medical studies, graduating in 1904. She carried out widely cited research on the thyroid, identifying solid cell nests (SCN) in 1907. Because"
"1957 Israeli presidential election An election for President of Israel was held in the Knesset on 28 October 1957 following the end of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi's five-year term in office. Ben-Zvi stood again, and it was suggested that Yosef-Yoel Rivlin (father of Reuven Rivlin) would run against him as a representative of Herut. However, in the end Rivlin did not participate in the election. Although Ben-Zvi was the only candidate, a vote was still held. He was re-elected with 76 of the 94 ballots cast; the other 18 votes were blank ballots. 26 Knesset members did not vote. Ben-Zvi's second term"
"be configured, these Israeli roads might impede free travel by Palestinians throughout their proposed nation and reduce the ability to absorb Palestinian refugees. Borders, airspace, and water resources of the Palestinian state would have been left in Israeli hands. President Arafat rejected this offer and did not propose a counter-offer. No tenable solution was crafted which would satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian demands, even under intense U.S. pressure. Clinton blamed Arafat for the failure of the Camp David Summit. In the months following the summit, Clinton appointed former US Senator George J. Mitchell to lead a fact-finding committee that later"
"he retired. But he rejected the offer. He did not view himself as a politician, and was not seeking a political career. Though he joined the Likud party in the 1990s, he was not openly active in politics because he didn't believe that an active sportsman should involve himself in politics. When Likud party chairman Benjamin Netanyahu approached him personally, however, and asked him to step forward for the country, Brody for the first time considered entering politics. Netanyahu was interested in involving people who had not formerly entered into politics. Brody found it difficult to turn away Netanyahu, who"
"proposer of the Higgs mechanism, which predicted the existence of the Higgs boson), Andrew Huxley (physiologist and biophysicist), William Stanley Jevons (economist), Sir Frank Kermode (literary critic), A. E. Housman (classical scholar, and poet), Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (first President of Czechoslovakia and ""Father of the Nation""), John Stuart Mill (philosopher), Peter Kirstein CBE (computer scientist, significant role in the creation of the Internet), George R. Price (population geneticist), Edward Teller (""Father of the Hydrogen Bomb""), David Kemp (the first scientist to demonstrate the existence of the otoacoustic emissions) and Dadabhai Naoroji (Indian Parsi leader, the first Asian to be elected"
"staunch rationalist who disapproved of orthodox Hindu belief, dismissing cow worship as superstitious. Being Hindu, for him, was a cultural and political identity. Satyendra Nath Bose (1894 – 1974) was an atheist physicist specialising in mathematical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. Meghnad Saha (1893 – 1956) was an atheist astrophysicist best known for his development of the Saha equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), India's first Prime Minister was a"
"Hebrew on 2 April 1925 during the University's groundbreaking ceremonies. He negotiated with the University's president, Judah Magnes, regarding a position at the University and the building that was to house the Mathematics Institute. Landau and his family emigrated to Palestine in 1927 and he began teaching at the Hebrew University. The family had difficulty adjusting to the primitive living standards then available in Jerusalem. In addition, Landau became a pawn in a struggle for control of the University between Magnes and Chaim Weizmann and Albert Einstein. Magnes suggested that Landau be appointed Rector of the University, but Einstein and"
"and the right wing Gahal alliance were adamantly opposed to withdraw from the Palestinian Territories; the second-largest party in the government resigned on 5 August 1970. Ultimately, the plan also failed due to insufficient support from Nixon for his Secretary of State's plan, preferring instead the position of his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, not to pursue the initiative. No breakthrough occurred even after President Sadat of Egypt in 1972 unexpectedly expelled Soviet advisers from Egypt, and again signaled to Washington his willingness to negotiate. On 28 February 1973, during a visit in Washington, D.C., the then Israeli prime minister"
"Jewish congregation in Champaign-Urbana. During World War II, Sachar worked as a radio news analyst in Chicago and New York, commenting on contemporary affairs. He was also involved with attempts to aid Jewish refugees, organizing a program to bring refugee students to the United States. In 1948 trustees of the newly formed, Jewish-sponsored, nonsectarian Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts asked Albert Einstein to be their first president. When he refused, their second choice was Sachar, who had displayed his Zionist zeal in his 1930 work, ""History of the Jews"". During his 20-year tenure, Sachar's leadership and fund-raising skills were largely"