Physics

Biographical

J. Hans D. Jensen was born in Hamburg on 25th June 1907, the son of a gardener Karl Jensen. From 1926 he studied physics, mathematics, physical chemistry and philosophy at the Universities of Hamburg and Freiburg i. Br. He obtained his Ph.D in 1932 in Hamburg (physics, Dr.rer.nat.). He became scientific assistant at the Institute…

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Biographical

Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov was born on December, 14, 1922 in the small town of Usman near Voronezh, the son of Gennady Fedorovich Basov and Zinaida Andreevna Molchanova. His father was a professor of the Voronezh Forest Institute and devoted his life to investigation of the influence of forest belts on underground waters and on surface…

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Biographical

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov was born on July 11th, 1916, in Australia. After the Great October Revolution he went in 1923 with his parents to the Soviet Union. In 1934 Alexander Prochorov entered the Physics Department of the Leningrad State University. He attended lectures of Prof. V.A. Fock (quantum mechanics, theory of relativity), Prof. S.E. Frish…

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Biographical

Hans Albrecht Bethe was born in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, on July 2 1906. He attended the Gymnasium in Frankfurt from 1915 to 1924. He then studied at the University of Frankfurt for two years, and at Munich for two and one half years, taking his Ph. D. in theoretical physics with Professor Arnold Sommerfeld in July…

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Biographical

Leo Esaki was born in Osaka, Japan in 1925. Esaki completed work for a B.S. in Physics in 1947 and received his Ph.D in 1959, both from the University of Tokyo. Esaki is an IBM Fellow and has been engaged in semiconductor research at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York,…

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Biographical

Ivar Giaever was born in Bergen, Norway, April 5, 1929, the second of three children. He grew up in Toten where his father, John A. Giaever, was a pharmacist. He attended elementary school in Toten but received his secondary education in the city of Hamar. Next he worked one year at the Raufoss Munition Factories…

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Biographical

Nevill Francis Mott was born in Leeds, U.K., on September 30th, 1905. His parents, Charles Francis Mott and Lilian Mary (née) Reynolds, met when working under in the Cavendish Laboratory; his great grandfather was Sir John Richardson, the arctic explorer. He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol and St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he studied…

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Biographical

  Date of birth: 4 January 1940   Place of birth: Cardiff, Wales, U.K.     Education Cardiff High School   University of Cambridge, B.A. 1960 University of Cambridge, M.A., Ph.D 1964     Academic Career   Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 1962 Research Assistant Professor, University of Illinois 1964-65 Assistant Director of Research, University…

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Nobel Prize lecture

Nobel Lecture, June 7, 1938 Electronic Waves Ever since last November, I have been wanting to express in person my gratitude to the generosity of Alfred Nobel, to whom I owe it that I am privileged to be here today, especially since illness prevented me from doing so at the proper time. The idealism which…

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