RABINOWITCH, EUGENE

RABINOWITCH, EUGENE (1901–1973), U.S. biochemist and biophysicist. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Rabinowitch worked in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physical Chemistry at Dahlem, Berlin (1926–29), and at the University of Goettingen until the Nazis came to power. In 1933 he was Rask-Orsted Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Copenhagen and from 1934 worked in London. In 1939 he went to the United States, where he was attached to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and associated with the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project. In 1947 he became professor of botany at the University of Illinois, and in 1960 professor of biophysics. In 1968 he was appointed professor of chemistry and biology, and adviser to the Center for Science and Human Affairs, at the State University of New York (Albany). His major scientific papers were on photochemistry, photobiology and reaction kinetics. He wrote Periodisches System (1930) and Photosynthesis and Related Processes (3 vols., 1945–56), edited The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (1945–); Minutes to Midnight (1950); The Chemistry of Uranium (1951); and Dawn of a New Age (1963), and co-edited The Atomic Age (1963). (Samuel Aaron Miller)