Willis Lamb

Lamb in 1955

Born|

Willis Eugene Lamb Jr.

(1913-07-12)July 12, 1913

Los Angeles, California, US

Died| May 15, 2008(2008-05-15) (aged 94)

Tucson, Arizona, US

Alma mater| University of California, Berkeley (BS, PhD)
Known for| Lamb shift (1947)
Title| Wykeham Professor of Physics (1956–1962)
Spouse(s)|

Ursula Schäfer
(m. 1939; died 1996)

Awards|

* Rumford Prize (1953)
* Nobel Prize in Physics (1955)
* Einstein Prize for Laser Science (1992)
* National Medal of Science (2000)

Scientific career
Fields|

* Atomic physics
* Quantum physics

Institutions|

* Columbia University (1938–51)
* Stanford University (1951–56)
* Oxford University (1956–62)
* Yale University (from 1962)

Thesis| I. On the Capture of Slow Neutrons in Hydrogenuous Substances, II. Electromagnetic Properties of Nuclear Systems (1938)
Doctoral advisor| J. Robert Oppenheimer
Doctoral students|

* Bernard T. Feld (1945)[1]
* Norman Myles Kroll (1948)[1]
* Theodore Maiman (1955)[1]
* Balázs László Győrffy (1966)[1]
* Marlan Scully (1966)[1]

Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an American physicist who shared the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics with Polykarp Kusch "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum". Lamb was able to precisely determine a surprising shift in electron energies in a hydrogen atom, known as the Lamb shift. He was a professor at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences.

## Contents

* 1 Biography
* 2 Quantum physics
* 3 Personal
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## Biography

Lamb was born in Los Angeles, California, 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.[2] Because of limited computational methods available at the time, this research narrowly missed revealing the Mössbauer Effect, 19 years before its recognition by Mössbauer.[3] He worked on nuclear theory, laser physics, and verifying quantum mechanics.

Lamb was a physics professor at Stanford from 1951 to 1956.[4] He 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.[5] In 2000, The Optical Society elected him an Honorary member.[6]

Lamb is remembered as a "rare theorist turned experimentalist" by D. Kaiser.[7]

## Quantum physics

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.[8][9][10] 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."[10] Lamb was also openly critical of many of the interpretational trends on quantum mechanics[11] and of the use of the term photon.[12]

## Personal

In 1939 Lamb married his first wife, Ursula Schäfer, a German student, who became a distinguished historian of Latin America (and assumed his last name).[13][14] 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,[3] due to complications of a gallstone disorder.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Willis lamb, Jr. - The Mathematics Genealogy Project". https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=107394.
2. ↑ Stiles, Lori (May 16, 2008). "Willis E. Lamb Jr., 1955 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dies at 94". The University of Arizona News. http://uanews.org/node/19760.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Holley, Joe (May 19, 2008). "Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist". The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/18/AR2008051802345.html.
4. ↑ Stanford Report, "Other Nobel connections to the Farm," Oct. 3, 2001
5. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter L". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterL.pdf.
6. ↑ "Willis Eugene Lamb, Jr. | Optica". https://www.optica.org/History/Biographies/bios/Willis-Eugene-Lamb_-Jr-.
7. ↑ D. Kaiser, Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams (University of Chicago, Chicago, 2005).
8. ↑ Lamb, W. E. Jr.; Retherford, R. C. (1947). "Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom by a Microwave Method". Physical Review 72 (3): 241–243. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.72.241. Bibcode: 1947PhRv...72..241R.
9. ↑ W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 480, 407-416 (1986).
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement, in Noise and Chaos in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1990) pp. 1-14.
11. ↑ W. E. Lamb, Super classical quantum mechanics: the best interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, Am. J. Phys. 69, 413-421 (2001)
12. ↑ Lamb, Willis E. "Anti-photon." Applied Physics B 60 (1995): 77-84.
13. ↑ Andreas Daum, Hartmut Lehmann, James Sheehan (eds.), The Second Generation: Émigrés 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.
14. ↑ "Ursula Lamb, UA historian, dies at 82". http://wc.arizona.edu/papers/90/1/16_1_m.html. accessed 5 July 2016.

## External links

* 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.
* Miss nobel-id as parameter  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

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics

1901–1925|

* 1901: Röntgen
* 1902: Lorentz / Zeeman
* 1903: Becquerel / P. Curie / M. Curie
* 1904: Rayleigh
* 1905: Lenard
* 1906: J. J. Thomson
* 1907: Michelson
* 1908: Lippmann
* 1909: Marconi / Braun
* 1910: Van der Waals
* 1911: Wien
* 1912: Dalén
* 1913: Kamerlingh Onnes
* 1914: Laue
* 1915: W. L. Bragg / W. H. Bragg
* 1916
* 1917: Barkla
* 1918: Planck
* 1919: Stark
* 1920: Guillaume
* 1921: Einstein
* 1922: N. Bohr
* 1923: Millikan
* 1924: M. Siegbahn
* 1925: Franck / Hertz

1926–1950|

* 1926: Perrin
* 1927: Compton / C. Wilson
* 1928: O. Richardson
* 1929: De Broglie
* 1930: Raman
* 1931
* 1932: Heisenberg
* 1933: Schrödinger / Dirac
* 1934
* 1935: Chadwick
* 1936: Hess / C. D. Anderson
* 1937: Davisson / G. P. Thomson
* 1938: Fermi
* 1939: Lawrence
* 1940
* 1941
* 1942
* 1943: Stern
* 1944: Rabi
* 1945: Pauli
* 1946: Bridgman
* 1947: Appleton
* 1948: Blackett
* 1949: Yukawa
* 1950: Powell

1951–1975|

* 1951: Cockcroft / Walton
* 1952: Bloch / Purcell
* 1953: Zernike
* 1954: Born / Bothe
* 1955: Lamb / Kusch
* 1956: Shockley / Bardeen / Brattain
* 1957: C. N. Yang / T. D. Lee
* 1958: Cherenkov / Frank / Tamm
* 1959: Segrè / Chamberlain
* 1960: Glaser
* 1961: Hofstadter / Mössbauer
* 1962: Landau
* 1963: Wigner / Goeppert Mayer / Jensen
* 1964: Townes / Basov / Prokhorov
* 1965: Tomonaga / Schwinger / Feynman
* 1966: Kastler
* 1967: Bethe
* 1968: Alvarez
* 1969: Gell-Mann
* 1970: Alfvén / Néel
* 1971: Gabor
* 1972: Bardeen / Cooper / Schrieffer
* 1973: Esaki / Giaever / Josephson
* 1974: Ryle / Hewish
* 1975: A. Bohr / Mottelson / Rainwater

1976–2000|

* 1976: Richter / Ting
* 1977: P. W. Anderson / Mott / Van Vleck
* 1978: Kapitsa / Penzias / R. Wilson
* 1979: Glashow / Salam / Weinberg
* 1980: Cronin / Fitch
* 1981: Bloembergen / Schawlow / K. Siegbahn
* 1982: K. Wilson
* 1983: Chandrasekhar / Fowler
* 1984: Rubbia / Van der Meer
* 1985: von Klitzing
* 1986: Ruska / Binnig / Rohrer
* 1987: Bednorz / Müller
* 1988: Lederman / Schwartz / Steinberger
* 1989: Ramsey / Dehmelt / Paul
* 1990: Friedman / Kendall / R. Taylor
* 1991: de Gennes
* 1992: Charpak
* 1993: Hulse / J. Taylor
* 1994: Brockhouse / Shull
* 1995: Perl / Reines
* 1996: D. Lee / Osheroff / R. Richardson
* 1997: Chu / Cohen-Tannoudji / Phillips
* 1998: Laughlin / Störmer / Tsui
* 1999: 't Hooft / Veltman
* 2000: Alferov / Kroemer / Kilby

2001–
present|

* 2001: Cornell / Ketterle / Wieman
* 2002: Davis / Koshiba / Giacconi
* 2003: Abrikosov / Ginzburg / Leggett
* 2004: Gross / Politzer / Wilczek
* 2005: Glauber / Hall / Hänsch
* 2006: Mather / Smoot
* 2007: Fert / Grünberg
* 2008: Nambu / Kobayashi / Maskawa
* 2009: Kao / Boyle / Smith
* 2010: Geim / Novoselov
* 2011: Perlmutter / Riess / Schmidt
* 2012: Wineland / Haroche
* 2013: Englert / Higgs
* 2014: Akasaki / Amano / Nakamura
* 2015: Kajita / McDonald
* 2016: Thouless / Haldane / Kosterlitz
* 2017: Weiss / Barish / Thorne
* 2018: Ashkin / Mourou / Strickland
* 2019: Peebles / Mayor / Queloz

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