Class
| • | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Dr. Nicolaas Bloembergen | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1920 | | | Death Date: | September 5, 2017 | | | | | | |
Nicolaas Bloembergen was born in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, in 1920. He obtained his Phil. Cand. and Phil. Drs. Degrees in physics at the University of Utrecht. In 1946 he came to the United States and worked with Professor E.M. Purcell at Harvard on Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation. This was the title of his Ph.D. thesis, submitted at the University of Leiden in 1948, where he was a research fellow in the Kamerkingh Onnes Laboratory. He returned to Harvard University in 1949 as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, became Associate Professor of Applied Physics in 1951, Gordon McKay Professor in 1957, Rumford Professor of Physics in 1974, and Gerhard Gade University Professor in 1981. Since 1990 he has been professor emeritus. He then held an honorary professorship in the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. His research was concerned with nuclear and electron paramagnetic resonance, microwave masers and nonlinear optics. He had supervised fifty-seven Ph.D. theses, and a similar number of post-doctoral fellows have worked in his laboratory. He was the author or co-author of over three hundred scientific papers published in professional journals and had written two monographs: Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation (republished 1961) and Nonlinear Optics (1965). He was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1981, the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in 1978, and the National Medal of Science in 1974. He also received the Medal of Honor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Frederick Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America and the Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute. He was a member of various academies in the United States and abroad. In addition to his service on the faculty of the Arts and Sciences at Harvard University for four decades, he was a visiting professor in Paris, Leiden, Bangalore, Munich, Berkeley, and Pasadena. Furthermore, he had served on numerous advisory committees of U.S. government agencies and of industrial and academic institutions and on several editorial boards of scientific publications. In 1991 he was president of the American Physical Society. Nicolaas Bloembergen died September 5, 2017, in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 97. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. H. S. Gutowsky | | | Institution: | University of Illinois | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1919 | | | Death Date: | January 13, 2000 | | | | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Tullio Regge | | | Institution: | Institute of Theoretical Physics, Turin | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1931 | | | Death Date: | October 23, 2014 | | | | | | |
Tullio Regge was an Italian theoretical physicist known for his introduction of geometrical principles to the formulation of what have come to be called "Regge poles" and the "Regge calculus," a simplified form of general relativity. A graduate of the University of Rochester (Ph.D., 1956), Dr. Regge served as Professor of Theory and Relativity at the University of Turin beginning in 1962. For 12 years he was also a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University (1967-79). Winner of the 1996 Dirac Medal, Dr. Regge had also been awarded the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (1964), the Einstein Medal (1979) and Cecil Powell Medal (1987). In 1989 he was elected to the European Parliament. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1982. He died October 23, 2014, at the age of 83. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Gerald J. Wasserburg | | | Institution: | California Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1927 | | | Death Date: | June 13, 2016 | | | | | | |
Gerald Joseph Wasserburg was born on March 25, 1927 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Charles Wasserburg and Sarah (Levine) Wasserburg. He attended New Brunswick public schools and served in the U.S. Army as a rifleman with the 23rd Reg., 2nd Division. He was discharged in 1946 and attended Rutgers University for two years and then the University of Chicago, where he obtained a B.Sc. in physics in 1951 and an M.Sc. in geology in 1952. He served on the Juneau Ice Field Research Project under Henri Bader in 1950 and served as a consultant at the Argonne National Laboratory from 1952-55. He conducted graduate research at the University of Chicago under H. C. Urey and M. G. Inghram III and received his Ph.D. in 1954. He also served as a research associate at the university's Institute for Nuclear Studies from 1954-55. Dr. Wasserburg then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where, in the course of five decades of service, he was assistant professor (1955-59), associate professor (1959-62), professor of geology and geophysics (1962-82), John D. MacArthur Professor of Geology and Geophysics (1982-2001), Chairman of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (1987-89) and Professor Emeritus, (2002-). Dr. Wasserburg also undertook extensive work for NASA as an advisor (1968-88) and as a member of the Lunar Sample Analysis Planning Team (LSAPT), Manned Spacecraft Center (1968-71), the Lunar Sample Review Board (1987-88), the Facilities Working Group of LSAPT, Johnson Space Center (1972-present); the Science Working Panel for Apollo Missions (1971-73); the Physical Sciences Committee (1971-75); and the Lunar Base Steering Committee (1984). He also chaired the Lunar Sample Analysis Planning Team (1970) and the Committee for Planetary and Lunar Exploration (1975-78). Dr. Wasserburg was a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (president, planetology section, 1976) and the Geological Society of America, a member of the Meteoritical Society (vice president, 1985, president, 1987-88) and the American Chemical Society and a former member of the American Physical Society, the U.S. National Committee for Geochemistry, the Committee for Planetary Exploration Study, the National Research Council, and the Advisory Council of the Petroleum Research Fund. He was also the associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research (1967-74) and the editor of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (1968-71) and served on the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wasserburg's research interests included geochemistry, geophysics and astrophysics; the use of the methods of chemical physics to problems in the evolution of the earth and the solar system; and the development of ultra-high precision and high sensitivity mass spectrometric and chemical techniques, and the application of these techniques to determine the time scales of formation of the solar system from the interstellar medium, and the evolution of planets including the earth, moon and meteorites. His major research includes short-lived radioactive nuclei in the early solar system (in particular 26Al and 107Pd); the time scales of nucleosynthesis, chemical evolution of the interstellar medium and the IGM, connections between the interstellar medium and the solar system, and the isotopic records of planetary evolution and chemical differentiation. He had also conducted general study of processes using long- and short-lived natural radioactivities, including the interaction of water and rock and the origin of natural gases, and the application of thermodynamic methods to geologic systems. Dr. Wasserburg's professional honors include membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1967) and the National Academy of Sciences (1971); NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award (1970); the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America (1970); NASA's Medal for Distinguished Public Service (1972 & 1978); the J. F. Kemp Medal for Distinguished Public Service from Columbia University (1973); Meteoritical Society's Leonard Medal (1975); the V. M. Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society (1978); the Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship, National Academy of Sciences (1981); a John D. MacArthur Professorship (1982); a Regents Fellowship, Smithsonian Instit.; the J. Lawrence Smith Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1985); the Geological Society of London's Wollaston Medal (1985); the Senior U.S. Scientist Award, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (1985); the Harry H. Hess Medal of the American Geophysical Union (1985); the Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1986); the Holmes Medal, European Union of Geosciences (1987); and the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal (1991). He received the Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 2008. He was also a fellow of the Geological Society of London (honorary, 1995) and the Geochemical Society and the European Association for Geochemistry (1996). Dr. Wasserburg married Naomi Z. Orlick in 1951. The couple have two children: Charles David and Daniel Morris. Gerald Wasserburg died June 13, 2016, at the age of 89. | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Steven Weinberg | | | Institution: | University of Texas at Austin | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1933 | | | Death Date: | July 23, 2021 | | | | | | |
Steven Weinberg was the 2004 recipient of the Society's Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Science. He was educated at Cornell University (A.B., 1954) and the Copenhagen Institute for Theoretical Physics (now the Niels Bohr Institute) and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1957. He taught at Columbia University for two years before moving to the University of California, Berkeley. From 1966 to 1969, on leave from Berkeley, Dr. Weinberg held positions at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a professor at MIT from 1969 to 1973 before officially joining Harvard's faculty in 1973 as the Higgins Professor of Physics. Ten years later Dr. Weinberg moved to the University of Texas as the Josey Regental Professor of Science while continuing at Harvard as the Morris Loeb Visiting Professor of Physics. He has also held positions at the Imperial College, London, and Stanford University, and was a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for ten years. Among his many distinctions are the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, the National Medal of Science in 1991, the Humanist of the Year award from the American Humanist Association in 2002, and the 2020 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The prize certificate citation for Steven Weinberg's Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences reads, "In recognition of his role as a leading architect of the electroweak theory of interactions, a theory that unites the weak and the electromagnetic forces of nature. This was the first such unification since Maxwell had shown in the nineteenth century that electricity and magnetism are manifestations of the same phenomenon. In recognition of his highly regarded textbooks, including Gravitation and Cosmology and The Quantum Theory of Fields (in 3 volumes); his books for the general audience, most notably The First Three Minutes; and his extensive writing on subjects of public interest, such as ballistic missile defense. The American Philosophical Society salutes Steven Weinberg, considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive in the world today." Dr. Weinberg has been a member of the American Philosophical Society since 1982. | |
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