Chaim L. Pekeris joined the Weizmann Institute as head of its Department of Applied Mathematics in 1949. He died in Rehovot, Israel on February 24, 1993. Chaim L. Pekeris Chaim Leib Pekeris (June 15, 1908 – February 24, 1993) was an Israeli-American physicist and mathematician. He made notable contributions to geophysics and the spectral theory of many-electron atoms, in particular the Helium atom. He was also one of the designers of the first computer in Israel, WEIZAC. Pekeris was born in Alytus, Vilna Governorate. With the assistance of his uncle, Pekeris and his two brothers emigrated to the United States around 1925. He
Chaim Weizmann Switzerland to complete his studies at the University of Fribourg. In 1898, he attended the Second Zionist Congres in Basel, and that year became engaged to Sophia Getzowa. In 1899, he was awarded a PhD in organic chemistry. That same year, he joined the Organic Chemistry Department at the University of Geneva. In 1901, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the University of Geneva. Getzowa and Weizmann were together for four years before Weizmann, who had begun also dating Vera Khatzman in 1900, confessed to Getzowa he was involved with two women. He would not tell his family that he