Gabriel Weinreich: The life and style

Abstract

Gabriel Weinreich (Gabi) was born in Vilna, Poland (now the capitol of Lithuania) one year prior to the founding of the Acoustical Society of America. When the second world war began in central Europe, Gabi’s family came, in serial fashion, to New York City—Gabi himself arriving in 1941. Gabi studied physics at Columbia, and received a Ph.D. in 1953 for a thesis on atomic physics directed by the legendary I. I. Rabi. He subsequently worked on fundamental properties of semiconductors, first at Bell Labs, then, starting in 1960, at the University of Michigan. In 1977 he turned his attention to the acoustics of musical instruments, mainly the piano and bowed strings. He studied all phases of the physical elements: string excitation, string vibration, coupling, and radiation. Gabi brought his special style to acoustics—a combination of theory and experiment that imaginatively imports ideas and techniques from one area of physics into another, a willingness to attack traditional problems afresh by returning to first principles, and the ability to present ideas with incisive wit and charm so that information is not only informative but is also entertaining.