It's funny how the Holocaust keeps on popping up where you least expect it. When I was in California, I worked as a software engineer supporting a physicist working on image perspective transformations (we were designing software for training glide bomb bombadiers).
Knowing of my background in airphoto and astronomy, he assigned me to code up the equations for projecting elliptical binary star orbits onto the celestial sphere which had been developed by a Polish Jewish astronomer in the thirties. We planned to use these algorithms for perspective transforms on aerial photographs. He gave me a photocopy of an American astronomical journal article published during the war years. There was a chilling editor's note appended to it (I paraphrase, of course, from memory):
"Our apologies to Dr _________ for presenting his monograph without his permission or without his having an opportunity to review it first. Due to the conflict in Europe, we have not been able to communicate with him. However, we feel the work is of great value and deserves to be published."
The Polish astronomer's name was clearly Jewish in origin.
Off Topic » in reply to Uncle Leo's medals
The Kracovian Calculus.
