The pioneers of the computer

WEIZAC, the first electronic computer, built at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1954, will be crowned today, December 5, 2006, "a milestone in the world history of computing" by the American Society for Electrical and Electronics Engineering - IEEE

At this event, about a dozen builders of the first computer will receive a special medal, the "WEIZAC Medal" from the hands of the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Prof. Daniel Zeifman

"Vitzak", one of the first electronic computers in the world, and the first in Israel, was designed and built at the institute in 1954 and operated until the early sixties. "Vitzak" was used for mathematical research, such as solving problems related to tides and low tides. In order to solve these problems, many and very complicated calculations must be made, and there is no point in trying to do them without a computer. The calculations carried out by the institute's scientists, using "Vitzak", and which took thousands of computer hours, allowed them to draw maps that roughly describe the fluctuations of the tides in the world. In another study, the institute's scientists used "Witzak" to calculate the spectrum of the helium atom, which includes three bodies: a nucleus and two electrons moving around it. Solving the dynamic relationship between three bodies is considered a very complex mathematical task, and in fact, to this day - with all the progress in the field of computers - we still do not have a complete solution to this type of problem. In one area, "Witzek" held a world record: it was able to handle longer words, compared to the maximum length of words that other computers of its time were able to absorb.

 Two successors to "Witzak" - "Golem A" and "Golem B" - which were also designed and built at the Institute, were also the most modern and advanced of their kind, at the time of their completion in 1964 ("Golem A") and in 1972 ("Golem B") . These computers were used for research purposes at the institute and other Israeli research centers.