Marcos Moshinsky

Marcos Moshinsky Borodiansky (Kiev, April 20, 1921-Mexico City, April 1, 2009), known as Marcos Moshinsky, was a Mexican physicist of Jewish and Ukrainian origin whose research in the field of nuclear physics earned him the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research in 1988.^{[citation required]}

Biographical sketch

He was born on April 20, 1921 in the city of kyiv (Ukraine, then part of the USSR) in the bosom of a couple of Jewish origin. At the age of three, he emigrated as a refugee to Mexico, the country where he completed his studies and where he was granted citizenship in 1942. After obtaining a degree in physics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, he received his doctorate from Princeton University (United States) under the supervision of Eugene Paul Wigner (see Nobel Prize in Physics).

In the 1950s, he dedicated his research to the study of nuclear reactions and the structure of atomic nuclei, where he introduced the concept of transformation brackets for harmonic oscillator functions, which, Like the tables he prepared in collaboration with Tomás Brody, it has facilitated calculations in the nuclear shell model and has become an essential reference for understanding nuclear structures. He met the physicist Albert Einstein and carried out some studies with him.

After completing postdoctoral studies at the Henri Poincaré Institute in Paris, he returned to the Mexican capital to work as a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 1967 he was elected president of the Mexican Physics Society and in 1972 he was admitted to El Colegio Nacional, the latter institution where he continued to present or organize presentations for the dissemination of his discipline. He was editor of several international scientific journals and author of more than two hundred technical publications and four books.

In 1961 he was the winner of the Research Prize of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. In 1968 he received the National Prize for Sciences and Arts, in 1971 the Luis Elizondo Prize, in 1985 the National University (UNAM) Prize for Exact Sciences (which he donated to the victims of the earthquake in September of that same year), in 1997 the Unesco Science Award, and in 1988 the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research. He was a member of the Science Advisory Council of the Presidency of the Republic and was named Emeritus National Researcher by the National System of Researchers of Mexico in 1996.

In addition to his work as a physicist, Moshinsky wrote a weekly column in the newspaper Excélsior, where he maintained a conservative position regarding Mexican politics.

“Thanks to science, we can protect ourselves from natural calamities, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes. But the greatest danger to the future of humanity is human beings. Lack of coexistence. If we could have the same confidence to resolve the discord with which we can deal with natural phenomena and diseases, living conditions would be more satisfying for all. ”

He lived in Mexico, very close to the Ciudad Universitaria facilities, where for many years he taught at the Institute of Physics. Moshinsky was married twice, his first wife was Elena Aizen and his second wife, Esperanza del Río.

Marcos Moshinsky Medal

The Institute of Physics of the UNAM annually awards the Marcos Moshinsky Medal to those who have stood out for their original works in the field of theoretical Physics and who reside in Mexico.