WEIZAC The WEIZAC project was initiated by Prof. Chaim L. Pekeris, who worked at the IAS at the time von Neumann's IAS machine was being designed. Chaim Weizmann, Israel's future first president, asked Pekeris to establish the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute, and Pekeris wanted to have a similar computer available there. Pekeris wanted it as means to solve Laplace’s tidal equations for the Earth's oceans, and also for the benefit of the entire scientific community of Israel, including the Defense Ministry. In July 1947, an advisory committee for the Applied Mathematics Department discussed the plan to build
Chaim Weizmann during World War I, Weizmann was director of the British Admiralty laboratories from 1916 until 1919. In April 1918 at the head of the Jewish Commission, he returned to Palestine to look for "rare minerals" for the British war effort in the Dead Sea. Weizmann's attraction for British Liberalism enabled Lloyd George's influence at the Ministry of Munitions to do a financial and industrial deal with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) to seal the future of the Zionist homeland. Tirelessly energetic Weizmann entered London again in later October to speak for a solid hour with the Prime Minister, propped by "The