Gershom (Tom) Gale -- A Resume

I subsequently joined Maclean Hunter publications in Toronto, working as an editor for The Medical Post, and as editor in chief (setting and meeting a $250,000 editorial budget) for Canadian Research, Canadian Biotechnology, Hospital Product News, Canadian Clinical Laboratory, and Canadian Young Astronaut. While in these posts, the "generalist" education I had acquired helped me identify and promote what was genuinely new, and to bring together researchers in various fields.

For example, I introduced Dr. Tom Shaffer of Temple University (who had perfected liquid ventilation, which he had intended to employ in order to save premature children) to Dr. Henry Kolm, who had left MIT to found a company called Electromagnetic Launch Systems (which promised to put a two-ton payload into low Earth orbit in 1.9 seconds). It was my idea (subsequently favored by these two men) that filling an astronaut's lungs with the breathable liquid developed by Dr. Shaffer and floating him in a similarly liquid-filled capsule (i.e. neutral density encapsulation) would make it possible to withstand the 1,000G forces generated by Dr. Kolm's launch mechanism.
It is my understanding that this approach is now being explored by the US military.
Another technological "match" I was able to arrange was to make Dr. Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka aware of a new high-tensile plastic filament that had been developed by the Japanese. This filament would, I thought, make it possible to build the "space elevator" he described in his book The Fountains of Paradise. Dr. Clarke promised to investigate the suitability of the new material, and I suppose that recent space shuttle experiments with kilometers-long filaments may be a consequence.

Also during this time, I was awarded one of the earliest patents for a virtual reality head-mounted display (US Patent #4,952,024); sadly I have so far been unable to capitalize on the development.

I have been following the Star Wars program closely for years. In fact, during my educational period of reading doctoral theses, I ran across two disparate pieces of research which, put together, would make it possible to eliminate the problem of atmospheric laser dispersion. In 1979 I described this possibility in a letter to the US Science Advisor. What happened to the suggestion I do not know, since I never received any reply; but the fact that the solution coincided with the one incorporated in the program - in the Nautilus laser project in particular - puts me in a good position to work out next steps. Now that the Nautilus system is reaching the testing stage, I feel I have something to contribute. For example, I think there is a way to avoid the need to "target" and "track" individual missiles.

Since moving to Israel in 1989, I have been employed full-time by The Jerusalem Post, where I have served as Managing Editor of the International Edition and (currently) as Managing Editor/Designer of In Jerusalem Magazine, while editing columns for the Internet Edition. I have been named Editor and Graphic Designer for The Jerusalem Post's new Christian Edition.
Also during this time, I have held a number of freelance posts, editing four early volumes of the Steinsaltz Talmud, over a dozen religious and scientific books, a monthly high-tech report, and have done the copy editing/layout for over 50 issues of a weekly four-color magazine published by Chabad. Four years ago, I took a three-month leave of absence from the Post to commission, assemble and edit 500,000 custom-written words for a Holocaust Museum on CD-ROM (the Holocaust being a life-long interest). I am now editing books freelance for the Gal-Enai Institute.

I've also written a large body of poetry, prose and song lyrics, play the synthesizer, paint, and do a little inventing and theoretical physics on the side. Over the past two years, I have conceived of a way to get total paraplegics back on their feet, and am now working with Dr. Yehuda Sonnenblick of the Jerusalem College of Technology to investigate the viability of the concept and the possibility of securing a research grant to design and test a prototype.

I've recently been named Editor of The Jerusalem Post's new Christian edition.

I am fluent in XYrite, Q-Edit, MacWrite, Quark Xpress, Adobe Photoshop, 35mm photography and Word6, and have a passing acquaintance with CorelDRAW5.

I can be reached at the Post ((02) 531-5452, e-mail: gershom@jpost.com) or at home (02) 585-7264, e-mail: gershon1@netvision.net.il , and look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully
Gershom Gale

Eli Tavine 24/12
Pisgat Ze'ev
Jerusalem  97781
Israel