American Philosophical Society
Member History

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Residency
International (2)
Resident (3)
Class
1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences[X]
Subdivision
1Name:  Dr. Owen Gingerich
 Institution:  Harvard University & Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
 Year Elected:  1975
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  101. Astronomy
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1930
 Death Date:  May 28, 2023
   
 
Owen Gingerich is a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard University. In 1992-93 he chaired Harvard's History of Science Department. Professor Gingerich's research interests have ranged from the recomputation of an ancient Babylonian mathematical table to the interpretation of stellar spectra. In the past four decades Professor Gingerich has become a leading authority on the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler and on Nicholas Copernicus. His publications include a 600-page monograph surveying copies of Copernicus' great book De revolutionibus, for which he was awarded the Polish government's Order of Merit in 1981; later an asteroid was named in his honor. In 2006 he published God's Universe, a volume arguing that faith and science can coexist even in considerations of the nature of life. In 1984 he won the Harvard-Radcliffe Phi Beta Kappa prize for excellence in teaching. In June 2007 he was awarded the Prix Janssen by the French Astronomical Society. He has been a member of the American Philosophical Society since 1975. In June 2017 he received Benedict Polak Prize, which he described this way: "I have just returned from Poland, where I have received the Benedict Polak Prize, which I daresay no other APS member has ever heard of. Friar Benedict the Pole was drafted in 1245 as a translator-scholar to accompany a Papal group to visit the Khan of Mongolia. The present Benedict Polak Prize was established three years ago to honor explorers in any realm of human knowledge, and is to be given each year to a Polish citizen and to a foreigner. I received this year's prize for my Copernican researches. The Polish citizen prize went to my friend Jerzy Gassowski, the archaeologist who identified Copernicus' bones in an unmarked grave under the cathedral floor in Frombork. The prizes are given in Leczyca, a small village with the founding church in Poland and the church home of Benedict the Pole. It is hard to imagine that enough citizens of Leczyca would turn up for such an occasion, but actually people came from all over Poland. The president of Poland was not present in person, but sent a citation as well as a private and specific congratulatory letter to me."
 
2Name:  Harrie S. W. Massey
 Year Elected:  1975
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1908
 Death Date:  11/27/83
   
3Name:  Dr. William A. Nierenberg
 Institution:  Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
 Year Elected:  1975
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1919
 Death Date:  September 10, 2000
   
4Name:  Dr. Giuseppe Occhialini
 Institution:  University of Milan
 Year Elected:  1975
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1907
 Death Date:  12/30/93
   
5Name:  Dr. John Robert Schrieffer
 Institution:  National High Magnetic Field Laboratory & Florida State University
 Year Elected:  1975
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1931
 Death Date:  July 27, 2019
   
 
Research physicist John R. Schrieffer performed fundamental studies in solid state and low temperature properties of matter, including superconductivity and electromagnetism. With John Bardeen and Leon Neil Cooper he shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for developing the BCS theory, the first successful microscopic theory of superconductivity. After receiving a Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of Illinois, Dr. Schrieffer taught at the University of Chicago (1957-60), the University of Illinois (1959-62), the University of Pennsylvania (1962-80) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (1980-92). From 1992 until 2006 he served as Chief Scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Eminent Scholar Professor at Florida State University, where he has pursued the study of room temperature superconductivity. Dr. Schrieffer was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the author of the BCS theory book Theory of Superconductivity (1964). He died July 27, 2019 in Tallahassee, Florida at the age of 88.
 
Election Year
1975[X]