Past Presidents

American physicist and mathematician Prof. Chaim Pekeris joined the Weizmann Institute from the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University in 1950. At Princeton, he had  worked with the renowned mathematician Prof. John von Neumann, who had devised the architecture for the first generation of computers.

Prof. Pekeris saw his appointment at Weizmann as an opportunity to build a computer of his own, using von Neumann’s blueprints. Building the Weizmann Automatic Computer, or WEIZAC, was no small undertaking. Skeptics claimed that such a machine was far too sophisticated for the needs of what was still a technologically underdeveloped country. But he pressed on, and WEIZAC became an early example of the Institute’s willingness to plan large-scale, forward-looking projects and to invest in the most advanced and costly equipment for its researchers to work with.

Pekeris and Ephraim Frei, a Princeton colleague who came to Rehovot in 1952, persuaded Gerald and Thelma Estrin, two Princeton graduates, to move to Israel to help build the machine. The Estrins had to find imported materials that were in short supply and were forced to rely on a high degree of improvisation—some copper parts were fabricated by a local bicycle supply workshop—and they searched and eventually found people to write the programs. 

The first computer in the Middle East, WEIZAC performed its first calculation in 1955 and was in full operation by 1958. Pekeris used it to make calculations predicting ocean tidal movements, among other things, and made computing time available to scientists throughout the country.