American physicist (1913?2008)
Willis Eugene Lamb Jr.
(
; July 12, 1913 ? May 15, 2008) was an American
physicist
who won the
Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1955 "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum." The Nobel Committee that year awarded half the prize to Lamb and the other half to
Polykarp Kusch
, who won "for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron." Lamb was able to precisely determine a surprising shift in
electron
energies in a hydrogen atom (see
Lamb shift
). Lamb was a professor at the
University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Lamb was born in
Los Angeles
,
California
,
United States
and attended
Los Angeles High School
. First admitted in 1930, he received a
Bachelor of Science
in chemistry from the
University of California, Berkeley
in 1934. For theoretical work on scattering of neutrons by a crystal, guided by
J. Robert Oppenheimer
, he received the
Ph.D.
in physics in 1938.
[1]
Because of limited computational methods available at the time, this research narrowly missed revealing the
Mossbauer Effect
, 19 years before its recognition by
Mossbauer
.
[2]
He worked on nuclear theory, laser physics, and verifying quantum mechanics.
Lamb was a physics professor at
Stanford
from 1951 to 1956.
[3]
Lamb was the
Wykeham Professor
of Physics at the
University of Oxford
from 1956 to 1962, and also taught at
Yale
,
Columbia
and the
University of Arizona
. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1963.
[4]
Lamb is remembered as a "rare theorist turned experimentalist" by D. Kaiser.
[5]
Quantum physics
[
edit
]
In addition to his crucial and famous contribution to
quantum electrodynamics
via the
Lamb shift
, in the latter part of his career he paid increasing attention to the field of
quantum measurements
.
[6]
[7]
[8]
In one of his writings Lamb stated that "most people who use quantum mechanics have little need to know much about the interpretation of the subject."
[8]
Lamb was also openly critical of many of the
interpretational trends on quantum mechanics
.
[9]
and of the use of the term
photon
.
[10]
Personal
[
edit
]
In 1939 Lamb married his first wife,
Ursula Schafer
, a German student, who became a distinguished historian of Latin America (and assumed his last name).
[11]
[12]
After her death in 1996, he married physicist
Bruria Kaufman
in 1996, whom he later divorced. In 2008 he married Elsie Wattson.
Lamb died on May 15, 2008, at the age of 94,
[2]
due to complications of a gallstone disorder.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Stiles, Lori (May 16, 2008).
"Willis E. Lamb Jr., 1955 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dies at 94"
. The University of Arizona News. Archived from the original on August 28, 2008
. Retrieved
September 27,
2012
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link
)
- ^
a
b
Holley, Joe (May 19, 2008).
"Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist"
.
The Washington Post
. Retrieved
September 27,
2012
.
- ^
Stanford Report, "Other Nobel connections to the Farm," Oct. 3, 2001
- ^
"Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter L"
(PDF)
.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
. Retrieved
22 April
2011
.
- ^
D. Kaiser,
Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams
(University of Chicago, Chicago, 2005).
- ^
Lamb, W. E. Jr.;
Retherford, R. C.
(1947).
"Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom by a Microwave Method"
.
Physical Review
.
72
(3): 241?243.
Bibcode
:
1947PhRv...72..241R
.
doi
:
10.1103/PhysRev.72.241
.
- ^
W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement,
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
480
, 407-416 (1986).
- ^
a
b
W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement, in
Noise and Chaos in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems
(Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1990) pp. 1-14.
- ^
W. E. Lamb, Super classical quantum mechanics: the best interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics,
Am. J. Phys.
69
, 413-421 (2001)
- ^
Lamb, Willis E.
"Anti-photon."
Applied Physics B 60 (1995): 77-84.
- ^
Andreas Daum
,
Hartmut Lehmann
,
James Sheehan
(eds.),
The Second Generation: Emigres from Nazi Germany as Historians. With a Biobibliographic Guide
. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016,
ISBN
978-1-78238-985-9
, 12, 34, 36, 398?99.
- ^
"Ursula Lamb, UA historian, dies at 82"
. Archived from
the original
on 2015-04-05
. Retrieved
2015-03-22
.
accessed 5 July 2016.
External links
[
edit
]
- Obituary, University of Arizona, 16 May, 2008.
[usurped]
- Hans Bethe talking about Willis Lamb
(video)
- Willis E Lamb Award
for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.
- Willis Lamb
on Nobelprize.org
including his Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1955
Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom
- Collection of articles and group photograph
(This photograph taken at
Lasers
'92
includes, right to left,
Marlan Scully
, W. E. Lamb,
John L. Hall
, and
F. J. Duarte
).
- Obituary:Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist
- National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
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