Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
Action at a distance
Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations
Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime
Mössbauer man—Stan makes his mark in physics
Stan's innovations in Mossbauer spectroscopy.
Rabbi Spektor's true genealogy
Most of what we discovered about Rabbi Spektor's genealogy was entirely true. All but the myth of our family's connection to it
Sputnik in the backyard
Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.
The Meeker Massacre
Social reformer Nathan Meeker was among nine men killed in an uprising of Ute Indians at the White River reservation where he was serving as U.S. agent. His wife and daughter—Smith family descendants—were held hostage for three weeks
The physics experiment that went wrong
How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?
The problem with anti-ballistic missiles
Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.
The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection
Yichus and our relation to the famous rabbi
Walter thought he had proved the family legend of descent from the celebrated Kovno Rav, Rabbi Yitchak Elchanon Spektor. Later facts emerged that suggested a more tenuous connection.