The Author 

  Professor Shimon Silman was born in Duluth, Minnesota, where his father (ordained by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein) served as rabbi. His yeshiva education was at Yeshiva University and later at the Lubavitch Colel in Crown Heights. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Minnesota and at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Prof. Silman received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and also taught mathematics there.

  In 1993 Professor Silman established the Rabbi Yisroel Aryeh Leib Research Institute on Moshiach and the Sciences with the approval and blessing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe MHM. The RYAL Institute hosts annual conferences on developments in science and technology that are characteristic of the Messianic Era. Scientific Thought in Messianic Times is based on the lectures delivered at these conferences over the years.

  Prof. Silman’s association with the world renowned nuclear scientist Prof. Alvin Radkowsky, whose nuclear reactor design is seen as a Swords Into Plowshares development, led him to study nuclear technology and to join a research team in nuclear engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He is currently professor of mathematics at Touro College in Brooklyn, New York, where he resides with his wife and children.