World’s man of science

Hesabi was born in Tehran; at the age of seven he moved to Beirut where he began attending school. At the age of seven he memorized the Holy Quran by heart and later he started to read the masterpieces of Persian literature.

At the early age of seventeen he obtained his Bachelor’s in Arts and Sciences from the American University of Beirut. Later he obtained his B.A. in civil engineering while working as a draftsman. After a short period of time he obtained a B.A. in mathematics and astronomy.

He continued his studies and as a graduate of the Engineering School of Beirut was admitted to the Ecole Superieure d’Electricité and in 1925 graduated from this school at the same time he was hired by the French Electric Railway Co.

He had a scientific mind and continued his research in physics at the Sorbonne University and obtained his Ph.D. in physics from that university at the age of twenty-five.

In 1947, he published his classic papers on “continuous particles”. Then he proposed his model of “infinitely extended particles” in 1957. The medal of the commandeur de la Légion d’honneur, France’s greatest scientific medal, was awarded to him for his achievements.

Mahmud Hesabi was the only Iranian student of Albert Einstein and during his years of scientific research he had meetings with well-known scientists such as Erwin Schrodinger, Max Born, Enrico Fermi, Paul Dirac, Aage Niels Bohr, and scholars such as Bertrand Russell and André Gide.