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 been successful. Of Chaim Weizmann's fifteen siblings, eleven survived to adulthood. Ten of the eleven surviving siblings made aliyah. Two also became chemists; Anna (Anushka) Weizmann worked in his Daniel Sieff Research Institute lab, registering several patents in her name. His brother, Moshe Weizmann, was the head of the Chemistry Faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Two siblings remained in the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution, a brother, Shmuel, and sister, Maria (Masha). Shmuel Weizmann was a dedicated Communist and member of the anti-Zionist Bund movement. During the Stalinist "Great Purge", he was arrested for alleged espionage and