Emmanuel David Tannenbaum (June 28, 1978 – May 28, 2012
[) was an ]Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i/American biophysicist and applied mathematician. He worked as a professor and researcher in the Department of Chemistry at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...
and the Department of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, specializing in the fields of mathematical biology, systems biology, and quantum physics.
Tannenbaum's initial work was in quantum chemistry as part of his Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
doctoral thesis where he developed a novel partial differential equation approach to the EBK quantization of nearly separable Hamiltonians in the quasi-integrable regime. Emmanuel Tannenbaum subsequently devoted his research to studying various problems in evolutionary dynamics
Evolutionary dynamics is the study of the mathematical principles according to which biological organisms as well as cultural ideas evolve and evolved. This is mostly achieved through the mathematical discipline of population genetics, along with ...
using quasispecies models. His seminal work centered on the key question of the evolutionary advantages of sexual reproduction
Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote th ...
. Tannenbaum demonstrated a strong selective advantage for sexual reproduction
Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote th ...
with fewer and much less restrictive assumptions than previously considered. Closely related to this line of reasoning, was the original work by Tannenbaum and James Sherley on the immortal strand hypothesis.
Tannenbaum also proposed a pioneering theory of why higher organisms need sleep. Towards the end of his life, he proposed a new approach to
anti- stealth technology based on the theory of Bose–Einstein condensate
In condensed matter physics, a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that is typically formed when a gas of bosons at very low densities is cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero (−273.15 °C or −459.6 ...
.
Emmanuel Tannenbaum received a number of honors including the Robert Karplus Robert Karplus (February 23, 1927 – March 20, 1990) was a theoretical physicist and leader in the field of science education.
Early life
Robert Karplus was born in Vienna, where he lived until the German occupation of Austria in 1938. He emigrate ...
Prize in Chemical Physics from Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, the prestigious Alon Fellowship from the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on re ...
, and a National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
research fellowship.[National Institutes of Health Fellowship: E.D. Tannenbaum (Harvard University). http://report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm?ot=&fy=2005&state=&ic=NIGMS&fm=&orgid=3212901&distr=&rfa=&view=data&pil=T#tabpi]
Dr. Tannenbaum is the son of mathematician Allen Tannenbaum
Allen Robert Tannenbaum (born January 25, 1953) is an American/Israeli applied mathematician and presently Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics & Statistics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is ...
and chemist Rina Tannenbaum. His sister, Sarah Tannenbaum-Dvir, is an oncologist/hematologist.
References
External links
Link to Emmanuel Tannenbaum's Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tannenbaum, Emmanuel
1978 births
2012 deaths
Israeli mathematicians
American people of Israeli descent
Israeli biologists
Israeli physicists
Academic staff of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Systems biologists
Harvard University alumni
Jewish physicists