פרופ' ג'רלד טאובר - ביוגרפיה וקורות חיים

Gerald Erich Tauber was born in Vienna in October 1922. At the beginning of World War II he managed to escape to England, and subsequently to Canada. He started his academic career as an Instructor in Mathematics, at the O.R.T. School, in Saint Paul, Quebec. While studying for his B.A. in Physics at the University of Toronto, he taught at Bishop Strachan School in Toronto. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in 1951.

Gerald returned to Canada as a lecturer at Hamilton College, McMaster University. From 1952-4 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow, at the National Research council of Canada. In 1954 he joined the Physics Department at Western Reserve University as an Assistant Professor, rising to Associate rofessor in 1958 and Full Professor in 1961. Gerald served as Chairman of the Department of Physics at Western Reserve from 1960-61 and 1964-65. In 1959-60 he took Sabbatical leave and was a Visiting Professor at the Technion in Haifa, where he started a long time collaboration on Relativity with Prof. Nathan Rosen. Gerald returned to Case-Western where he taught from 1961-5, before joining Tel Aviv University as a Professor in September 1965. He passed away after a short illness in Tel Aviv in January 1989.

Gerald's interests in Physics covered a wide range. At the early stage of his career he was interested in Theoretical Nuclear Physics and published widely in that field, but soon he become enamored by Cosmology and General Relativity, and devoted the rest of his career to research in these areas. In 1963 his work entitled “Gravitational Stability of Large Masses” won the $1000 prize of the Gravitational Research Foundation. At a later stage of his career he became interested in Albert Einstein, and was recognized as a world authority on the originator of the Theory of General Relativity.

Gerald was a prolific writer, and in addition to the numerous monographs and articles that he penned over the years, he was also the author of four authoritative books in the field:

• “Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity” published by Crown Publishers, New York, 1979.
• “Mans View of the Universe: A pictorial History” published by Crown Publishers, New York, 1979
• “Man and the Cosmos” published by Greenwich House, New York, 1979.
• “Relativity: From Einstein to Black Holes” published (Venture Books) by Franklin Watts Inc., 1988.
• With E. Gotsman edited “From SU(3) to Gravity- Festchrift, in Honor of Yuval Ne'eman”, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Gerald was a kind person, always prepared to share his knowledge, and provide a helping hand to his colleagues and students.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Education:

• B.A. (first class honors) University of Toronto, 1946
• M.A. University of Minnesota, 1947
• Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 1951

Experience:

• Instructor in Mathematics, O.R.T. School, Saint Paul, Quebec, 1941-1942
• Instructor in Physics, Bishop Strachan School, Toronto, 1944-1945
• Teaching Assistant, University of Minnesota, 1946-1950
• Sessional Lecturer, Hamilton College, McMaster University, 1950-1952
• Postdoctoral Fellow, National Research Council of Canada, 1952-1954
• Assistant Professor, Western Reserve University, 1954-1958
• Associate Professor, Western Reserve University, 1958-1961
• Visiting Professor, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 1959-1960
• Chairman, Dept. of Physics, Western Reserve University, 1960-1961
• Professor, Western Reserve University, 1961-1968
• Chairman, Dept. of Physics, Western Reserve University, 1964-1965
• Visiting Professor, Tel-Aviv University, 1965-1968
• Professor, Tel-Aviv University 1968-1989