Asher Peres

Born on 30 January 1934, Asher Peres was one of the founders of quantum information theory. Peres was born Aristide Pressman in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, France. His parents, Jewish emigrés from what is now Ukraine, worked to evade the Nazi regime during World War II and immigrated to Israel in 1949, when Peres was 15 years old. In Haifa, Peres studied mechanical engineering at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. Once he had completed his undergraduate degree in 1956, Peres began teaching nuclear engineering at Technion at the same time that he began his graduate studies in physics. Peres worked under Nathan Rosen on measuring gravitational radiation from astrophysical sources. That work would prove relevant decades later with the building of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and other instruments. After earning his PhD in 1959, Peres continued teaching at Technion, where he quickly became a full professor and would remain for the rest of his career. Some of his most important research involved quantum information, and he made fundamental contributions to the concepts of quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation. Besides publishing his foundational 1993 textbook Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods, he also authored more than 250 scientific articles. Peres died in 2005 at age 70; here is the obituary that appeared in Physics Today. (Photo credit: Aviva Peres, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection)

Date in History: 30 January 1934