Prof. Shmuel (Mola) Strickman, winner of the Israel Prize in Physics Research, 2003-1930 * 16 patents named after him * How to take a fingerprint from a diamond
Shmuel Strickman, who recently died of cancer, was born in Brest-Litovsk, Belorussia, which at the time was controlled by Poland. His grandfather on his mother's side, Mordechai Kozlovsky, subscribed to pamphlets called "Yediot Ha'vegan" which were published starting in 1895, "Written in the Ashkenazi language and copied into the Hebrew language by David Frishman" as written in the opening of one of them, which is currently in the possession of brother Natan Sharon, professor of biology at the institute Weizmann.
Shmuel's uncle, Pinchas Kozlovsky - later Sapir, the powerful finance minister - immigrated to Israel in 1929 and thanks to him the family received certificates and immigrated in 1934. After the family lived for a while in Sapir's house in Kfar Saba, they moved to Tel Aviv. Shmuel studied at the Zemanhof school and at the "Gaula" high school. In the Communist War he served as a bomb thrower in the Air Force and participated in the bombing of Gaza. After the war, he began to study electronic engineering at the Technion, and during his studies he worked for a living
Miscellany: He was a construction inspector for the Jewish Agency in Beer Sheva, a sailor on the ship "Negba" and a math teacher at "Khudori".
He did his doctoral thesis at the Weizmann Institute, with which he would be associated throughout his life. In 1967 he was appointed a full professor at the Weizmann Institute, in 1981 he was the head of the electronics department at the institute and in 1994 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He married Rachel Chodorovsky, and they had Hadas, a doctor of chemistry at the Weizmann Institute, Ilan, a doctor of electrical engineering, and Yoram, who also studied engineering.
His student, Prof. Gad Gorodetsky from Ben Gurion University, says that he recommended honesty to the university in its early days and also preferred to spend a sabbatical there, instead of abroad, as is customary. Prof. David Mochmel, former Dean of the Faculty of Physics at the Weizmann Institute, talks about the wide variety of fields in experimental, applied and theoretical physics in which he made an important contribution, including the behavior of particles under the influence of a magnetic field; the field of liquid crystals; and composite materials built from a non-uniform texture of components (after him and Prof. Zvi Cheshin from Tel Aviv University is called the Cheshin-Strickman method, which identifies the barriers to the properties of the components).
Dr. Ali Levin, who worked with him, says that he had "a rare technical sense... On the one hand, people came to him with problems and he knew how to dub them and know exactly what they needed. On the other hand, he understood what nature could provide. He knew how to connect the components and offer solutions." Indeed, 15 patents are registered in his name. His daughter Hadas says that the Diamond Exchange contacted him regarding diamond thefts, and he developed a kind of "fingerprint" by which any diamond can be identified. For his important contribution to the security system, he was twice awarded the Israel Security Award.
Prof. Strickman was an editorial board member of important scientific newspapers, himself authored hundreds of articles and won many international awards. His great curiosity recently led him to discover an interest in the languages of the Far East, and he studied Chinese, Korean and Japanese, and even delved into the inner logic of these languages. When he was awarded the Israel Physics Prize two years ago, his illness prevented him from participating in the ceremony, and his granddaughter Or - then 11 years old - received the prize in his place.
Southern Uri, Haaretz
