Who was Marcos Moshinsky?
Marcos Moshinsky was a prominent Mexican physicist of Russian-Jewish origin, born on June 28, 1921 in Kiev, Ukraine, and died on July 1, 2009 in Mexico City. Moshinsky is recognized for his contributions in theoretical physics and, in particular, in the field of nuclear physics and quantum field theory.
Moshinsky emigrated to Mexico in 1925 together with his family and became a Mexican citizen. In the 1940s, he studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he later became a professor and researcher. He did important research in the field of nuclear physics and contributed to the development of group theory in physics.
Robert Oppenheimer headed the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in the 1950s. Oppenheimer, renowned for his role in developing the atomic bomb, was director of the institute at the time.
Although there is no detailed information on the specific extent of their scientific collaboration, Oppenheimer is acknowledged to have influenced Moshinsky’s work and scientific orientation during this period.
“Princeton, in my graduate student days, was perhaps the most important center of theoretical physics in the world, partly because it had received many of the best European physicists as refugees, with scientists like Wigner at the University and oppenheimer directing the Institute of Advanced Study, two kilometers away”, he pointed out in Marcos Moshinsky in a portrait of his life.
Did Oppenheimer visit you at your house in Copilco?
A testimony of the physicist Alejandro Frank: “In his house in Copilco, Moshinsky had a unique collection of paintings that contain the signatures of hundreds of physicists, from Nobel laureates to mere mortals (with a degree in physics) who have visited him over the years. years. There are the signatures of Robert Oppenheimer, Eugene Wigner, Richard Feynman, Abdus Salam and many others.”