Igal Talmi

Igal Talmi was born in 1925 in Kyiv

Igal Talmi was born in Kyiv on 31 January 1925 as Igal Smilansky. His family moved to Mandate Palestine later that year and settled in Kfar Yehezkel, where his father taught. The family later changed its name to Talmi.

He finished Gymnasia Herzliya in 1942 and joined the Palmach. He studied physics and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, completing a master's degree under Giulio Racah in 1947. He earned his doctorate at ETH Zurich under Wolfgang Pauli and later worked with Eugene Wigner at Princeton.

In 1954 he joined the Weizmann Institute of Science and became a professor in 1958. He helped found its nuclear physics department, headed it from 1967 to 1976, and was dean of the physics faculty from 1970 to 1984. He developed a method to draw information on nuclear forces from experimental data and predict unmeasured energies.

He joined the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1963 and served on the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. He was also active in the movement to change Israel's electoral system. He was married to Chana for 77 years and died on 4 February 2026.