Pedro Lilienfeld

I have a problem with Islam, actually, several problems. It would appear that these are predominantly associated and caused by the total dependence on religious dominance of all Muslim societal facets. I became aware of this pervasive influence during our (my spouse and I) travels thorough several Muslim countries: Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan. I will…

Once upon a time, half a century ago, I had a colleague, a collaborator, with whom I had the pleasure of working on various interesting projects. He was very bright and knowledgable. He had a physics PhD from one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Our interactions were very constructive and rewarding.…

My early reading years were spent in Quito, the capital of Ecuador on the northwest of South America. I devoured books, all of them in Spanish, starting at age 9. Four authors predominated thereafter during my adolescence: Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Karl May. The former three, French, and the latter, German. All…

Early on in my professional career, perhaps in the 1960s, I became aware of a characteristic effect of lightning discharges on AM band radio reception: these discharges caused distinctively explosive crackling or crashing noises, when a radio set was tuned between stations on the AM band. I thought of a very simple “transistor radio” type…

Deutsche Physik? A new branch of science? Physics in German? Well, let me explain. It was a pseudo-scientific concoction that sprouted together with the rise of nazism in Germany. It was supported, principally but not exclusively, by two German Nobel Prize winner physicists: Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard. They attempted to “arianize” physics in order…

Paternal Ancestry In our joint — my father’s and mine — autobiography, we mentioned the genealogy of our family. On my father’s side, the Lilienfelds went back to Siegmund, my great-grandfather, and on my grandmother’s (Julia Berl or Dola) side, to her parents, Bernard Berl and Julie Hertz. Recently, googling my father’s name, Erich Lilienfeld,…

What has happened to these United States in the last decade, or so, has gotten me to reflect on how I feel about this country of adoption. Adoption that has gone both ways: I have tried to become part of it and it has, perhaps, attempted to adopt me. Neither has become completely fulfilled notwithstanding…

I grew up in Quito, Ecuador, a somewhat remote corner of northwest South America. Around the age of nine or ten I discovered radio and the link it provided to the rest of the world. I always had access to radio sets as they were being repaired by my engineer father. Eventually, we owned a…

If you wear an analog watch (one with hands and a dial with 12 segments), and you are able to discern where the Sun is, you have a nearly perfect compass, in fact, likely to be more accurate than a magnetic compass. Here is the procedure, a very simple one, indeed: The example illustrated below…

It has been said that knowledge of math, some math, can provide the individual with tools to fend off irrationality, ignorance, even superstition. I do subscribe to that assessment. A smattering of statistics helps to understand data. Indeed, there are many benefits garnered from a bit of math literacy. I’m going to give an illuminating…