David Faiman

David Faiman in March 2009

David Faiman (* 1944 in the United Kingdom ) is a British - Israeli physicist .

Life

Faiman was educated at Willesden County Grammar School and the University of London . 1969 PhD from the University of Illinois . After postdoctoral work at Oxford and at CERN , he came to Israel in September 1973 and worked at the Weizmann Institute there in the field of theoretical physics . As a result of the energy crisis after the Yom Kippur War , however, he switched his research interests from elementary particles to solar energy . In 1976 he was recruited by Amos Richmond to help found the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research on the Sede Boqer campus of Ben Gurion University in the Negev. Faiman founded the Institute's Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics , which he headed at the same time as the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center until he retired in 2013 with the rank of professor emeritus. Faiman lives in Sede Boqer, Israel, in a passive solar house in which almost all of the heating and cooling needs are covered by the sun. His hobbies include biblical geography and the music of Giacomo Meyerbeer .

Faiman's theoretical physical research focused on hadron spectroscopy with the quark model and various associated symmetries. His solar energy research included studies of solar radiation, energy conversion devices, and electricity generating systems. His most famous work was the development of a 10 m², mirrored, sun-trackable bowl, which concentrated sunbeams 1,000 times on a water-cooled solar system with a size of 100 cm². He developed this in collaboration with the Zenith Solar Company. When fully exposed to the sun, this system generates 2 kW of electrical power and 5 kW of thermal power , the latter in the form of hot water at 80oC.

Faiman was Israel's representative on solar energy at UNESCO , FAO and on Tasks 2 and 8 of the International Energy Agency . In this context, he is co-author of the book series Energy from the desert: Practical suggestions for very large photovoltaic systems .

Individual evidence

1. ^ The top 10 environmentalists helping green Israel - Israel 21c, Jeffrey Hyman, October 24, 2010
2. ↑ Biography on the faculty website Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
3. ↑ Israel pushes solar energy technology Linda Gradstein , National Public Radio , October 22 of 2007.
4. ^ Looking to the sun, Tom Parry, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Reflective mirrors seen raising solar potential , Ari Rabinovitch, Reuters , August 29, 2007.
6. ↑ Energy from the Desert: Practical Proposals for Very Large Scale Photovoltaic Systems, (James & James, London, 2007)

Web links

Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research