American Philosophical Society
Member History

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106. Physics (1)
1Name:  Dr. Daniel Kleppner
 Institution:  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Year Elected:  2007
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1932
   
 
Daniel Kleppner received bachelors degrees in physics from Williams College and Cambridge University, and in 1959 received the Ph.D. from Harvard University where he worked under the direction of Professor Norman F. Ramsey. The following year Drs. Ramsey and Kleppner developed the hydrogen maser, an atomic clock that has been widely employed for scientific studies and technological applications including the global positioning system. In 1966 Dr. Kleppner joined the faculty of physics at MIT and started a research program in high precision measurements and atomic scattering. David E. Pritchard, then a graduate student at Harvard, came with Kleppner to M.I.T. and later joined the faculty and commenced a research career that over the years contributed significantly to MIT's reputation. as an international leader in atomic physics. In the mid 1970s, Dr. Kleppner developed methods for studying a class of atoms known as Rydberg atoms. His early studies on the inhibited spontaneous emission of Rydberg atoms helped to spawn the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics, a subject that has helped to focus new interest on basic measurement processes. He also pioneered the study of Rydberg atoms in strong electric and magnetic fields. This system turned out to provide a fruitful arena for studying the connections between quantum and classical behavior, including the phenomenon known as quantum chaos. In 1977 Dr. Kleppner joined in a collaboration with Professor Thomas J. Greytak to attempt to form a Bose-Einstein condensate of atomic hydrogen. The search took longer than they expected--over twenty years--but in 1998 they succeeded. A few years earlier, students of Dr. Kleppner and Dr. Pritchard had discovered Bose-Einstein condensation in gasses of alkali metal atoms and the field exploded into the most dramatic development in atomic physics since the invention of the laser. Dr. Kleppner is currently the Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics, Emeritus, and Co-Director at the MITA-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences, Paris, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served as Chairperson of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics of the American Physical Society, a member of the APS Council, and on numerous advisory committees. Dr. Kleppner has received the Davisson-Germer Prize and the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the William F. Meggers Award and Frederick Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America, the James Rhyn Killian Faculty Achievement Award of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wolf Foundtion Prize in Physics, and the 2006 National Medal of Science. He served as co-chair of the American Physical Society Study Group on Boost-Phase Intercept for the National Missile Defense and, with the other members of the Study Group, has been awarded the 2005 APS Leo Szilard Lectureship Award in recognition of this work. In 2014 he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute. He received the 2017 American Physical Society Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research.
 
Election Year
2007 (1)