El fin de semana vi un video sobre la historia de Felix Zandman, fundador de Vishay.
Felix Zandman es un sobreviviente del holocausto que se salvo tras pasar 17 meses escondido en un pozo con 4 personas mas en Polonia. Durante esos meses, su tio, escondido con el, le enseno Matematicas y Fisica.
Despues de la guerra recibio un PhD en la Sorbonne y en 1956 se fue a USA donde fundo Vishay.
Entre sus varios inventos, que fueron la base de Vishay (empresa que factura hoy miles de millones de dolares) en componentes de semiconductores hay una idea super simple de miniaturizacion de resistencias:
Hasta ese momento la manera de aumentar la resistencia de los resistores era agrandando el tamano, Zandman descubrio que “haciendo unos pequenos cortes” en el resistor se aumentaba la resistencia, suena obvio al verlo, pero…
Tambien, es conocido su aporte a la industria armamenticia Israeli: cuando israel diseno el tanque Merkava, tenian un problema en que el cano del tanque se calentaba con el sol en la parte de arriba, mientras se mantenia a la sombra la parte de abajo, eso causaba una pequena deformacion en el cano, que causaba un desvio de aprox 1 metro en un target de 1 km.
Por anos cientos de Ingenieros buscaron soluciones de como enfriar el cano, para que no pase esto, Zandman se entero del problema de rebote y tiro una solucion totalmente “out of the box”, por que buscar la solucion enfriandolo, cuando se puede resolver el problema al reves? O sea buscando que se caliente parejo la parte de abajo. Solo con esa pregunta resolvio el problema.
Zandman ideo soluciones de este estilo para decenas de industrias, desde la industria automovilistica a la aeronautica, con inventos que permiten predecir cuales son los puntos debiles en estructuras, etc.
La vida da revancha, lo que le permitio a Zandman comprar en 1998 a la empresa alemana AEG Telefunken (que en ese momento era de Daimler Benz), Telefunken habia sido fundada por Emil Rathenau, un judio aleman, cuyo hijo Walther, luego presidente de la empresa, llego a convertirse en Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Alemania en 1922, anio en que fue asesinado por extremistas. Despues Telefunken fue expropiada y fue una de las empresas claves en la alemania nazi. En 1998 Zandman, aquel joven que aprendio matematicas encerrado en un pozo durante 14 meses, cierra el ciclo comprandola.
Hermosa e inspiradora historia. Gracias por postearla.
Comment por Cristián — Julio 6, 2009 @ 4:20 pm |
Excelente Historia! Gracias por compartirla
Comment por Marcelo Klein — Julio 6, 2009 @ 6:34 pm |
Pablo, ya que te gustan estas cosas, te sugiero que rastrees la historia de Tomás Hirschfeld, uruguayo, única persona que conozco que tiene un premio con su nombre (http://www.buchi.com/Tomas-Hirschfeld-Award.634.0.html).
Tomás, entre otras cosas, fue quien inventó las granadas cegadoras que usaron los israelíes en uno de sus rescate de aviones (creo que fue Mogadiscio). Las granadas cegadoras ya existían, pero tenían efectividad sólo si quienes debía afectar estaban mirando. Tomás las perfeccionó con astucia criolla. Les agregó un pequeño depósito de gas que se liberaba un segundo antes de la explosión, con un silbido como de llamada. Quien lo escucha se da vuelta a mirar… y la granada lo enceguece. Puede que los detalles de la historia no sean 100% así, la escuché hace mucho tiempo. Pero me parece que sería interesante rescatarlo del olvido dado que además inventó muchísimas cosas más.
Saludos
P.S. Te paso lo que se escribió de él en ocasión de su muerte
In Memoriam:
Tomas Hirschfeld
(1939-1986)
Tomas Hirschfeld, an internationally recognized
chemist and inventor well known for his work in both
analytical cytology and analytical chemistry, died on
April 24, 1986, from complications of heart disease. He
was 46 and is survived by his wife, Judith, and three
daughters.
Tomas served as a semiofficial oracle at all but the
most recent analytical cytology conferences, between
which he worked tirelessly and with great success at
making his seemingly fantastic predictions of the future
come true. He was born in Uruguay of German Jewish
parents and received his bachelor’s degree from Vasquez
Acevedo College and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry and
chemical engineering from the National University of
Uruguay, becoming a polyglot in modern languages by
necessity and a polyglot in science by aptitude and
interest.
In 1969, after working briefly for North American
Rockwell, Tomas joined the staff of Block Engineering,
where, as a diversion from his work in Fourier transform
infrared and Raman spectroscopy, he played a major
role in the development of multiple illumination
beam flow cytometers and in the extension of the sensitivity
of cytornetry to detection and measurement of
single virus particles and even of individual molecules.
In 1979, he moved to the Chemistry and Materials Science
Department at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
where his efforts turned to the development of
chemical microsensors utilizing fluorescence and optical
tunneling measurements made through fiber optics. He
also served as affiliate professor of Chemistry at the
University of Washington.
A prolific inventor, Tomas held over 100 patents. He
was the only person ever to receive the IR-100 award,
given by “Research and Development’’ magazine to the
100 best inventions of the year, five times; numerous
additional commercial products based on his inventions
are still in development. He won both the Louis Straight
and Meggers awards from the Society for Applied Spectroscopy,
and earlier this year received the Pittsburgh
Conference Award. He was also an author of almost 200
scientific articles and served on the editorial boards of
several journals. His prodigious list of publications is
matched by an equally impressive, although less generally
appreciated, body of contributions to research in
areas related to national security.
Tomas read about an incredible variety of subjects,
and it seemed that every time he ran across a property
of molecules that had not been exploited for analytical
purposes, he would consider that nature had issued him
a direct challenge, in response to which he would attempt
not only to tame the physical effect involved, but
to make it measurable using a few cents’ worth of materials,
simple electronics, and a personal computer. He
had more ideas in a week than many smart people have
in a year, and could bring new viewpoints to a discussion
of almost any scientific problem. He was often right;
more remarkably, when he was wrong, his analyses
could frequently point others toward the right answers.
Most recently, Tomas focused his attention on the development
of microdevices and microsensors, forecasting
that success in this field would reward those who could
“plagiarize from nature,” allowing the use of miniaturization
and machine intelligence to return measurement
power to the end user (Hirschfeld T Instrumentation
in the next decade. Science 230286-91,1985).
His premature death reminds us that there are areas in
which nature’s engineering could be improved upon; his
vision and enthusiasm inspire those of us who knew him
to redouble our efforts in that direction.
Howard M. Shapiro, M.D.
West Newton, Massachusetts 02165
Comment por Oscar Ventura — Julio 7, 2009 @ 10:10 am |