Dear Editor:
Many thanks to Eugene Stakhiv for the very interesting and informative article on “Ukraine’s technological ‘fingerprints’ ” (April 8). It is indeed important for us to realize the many contributions that Ukrainians have made to the world of science.
I would like to add the name of one more remarkable Ukrainian physicist, who among other notable scientific accomplishments, also happened to translate the Bible into Ukrainian.
Recently I was perusing a book on unusual short stories on “science and life,” with the interesting title of “The Kindly Dr. Guillotine” by the biophysicist Harold J. Morowitz. In his chapter on “Continuing Education,” he describes his long quest to find out more about the co-discoverer of X-rays, the Ukrainian physicist Johann (Ivan) Puluj.
Interestingly, after many years of fruitless years of searching for information about the person behind the “Mechanical Equivalent of Heat by Puluj’s Method” that was described in his undergraduate physics laboratory, and an inquiry to a leading historian of physics, he finally found a worthwhile reference to Puluj in – incredibly – The Ukrainian Weekly. The January 8, 1995, issue of The Weekly (page 7) had an article by Oleksa Bilaniuk on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Puluj’s birth.
Subsequently Dr. Morowitz contacted various Ukrainian sources in the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine. Prof. Roman Gaida from Lviv provided him with references to Puluj’s articles published in German in the 19th century.
Westfield, N.J.
Editor’s note: Readers may take a look at the issue of The Weekly mentioned above by going to www.ukrweekly.com, then clicking on “PDF Archive,” entering the year and clicking on the date of the issue.