2004
Physics Today, 2004: “In addition to physics and mathematics, Mort had two passions: chess and languages. In chess, he achieved world-class status, coming in sixth in the US Chess Open in 1945. He studied languages all his life. One of the earliest benefits that the physics community had from that passion was his translation of Lev Landau and Evgenii Lifshitz’s The Classical Theory of Fields (Addison-Wesley) in 1951, which alerted many readers to the riches to be found in the books by those authors. Mort’s activity as a translator of Russian physics literature played an important role in creating an awareness of the high quality of Russian physics during a period when normal contacts were blocked because of the cold war. He continued his studies of Mandarin and Hebrew well into his eighties.
Mort made time to eat lunch with his colleagues at the faculty club whenever possible. We relied on him to relay to us the details of the international chess matches that took place every few years, and he served as an impromptu reviewer of books, movies, plays, and concerts. He was only one or two degrees of separation away from the founders of modern 20th-century physics, and he brought to life the personalities that many of us had only read about. Interested in everything, he shared his enthusiasm with colleagues on the faculty and staff. We miss him.”
