DE-SHALIT, AMOS

DE-SHALIT, AMOS (1926–1969), Israeli scientist and educator. Born in Jerusalem, de-Shalit received his scientific training as a pupil of Joel racah at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. De-Shalit's major field of research was theoretical physics concerning nuclear structure theory, and his most important contributions were on the nuclear shell theory. In 1963 he published, together with igal talmi , Nuclear Shell Theory. De-Shalit headed the nuclear physics department of the weizmann institute of science , Reḥovot, from 1954 to 1964. He was scientific director of the Weizmann Institute from 1961 to 1963 and its director general from 1966 to 1968. He was elected a member of the Israel Academy of Science in 1963 and won the Israel Prize for Natural Sciences in 1965. He was an outstanding lecturer and had a tremendous enthusiasm for improved science teaching, which he succeeded in communicating to others. He believed that talented youngsters were in this technological age one of a nation's greatest assets, and that every effort should be made by the community to cultivate these talents. He believed that the future of higher education in the sciences was wholly dependent on the basis given at secondary education level. On his initiative the Israel Ministry of Education set up a committee for the promotion of the teaching of natural sciences in Israel in secondary schools and he served as chairman. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Europhysics News, 6 (Nov. 1969), 8.