Nobel Prize

Percy Williams Bridgman was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 21st, 1882. He received his early education in public schools in the nearby city of Newton until 1900 when he entered Harvard University. He graduated A.B. in 1904, A.M. in 1905 and was awarded his Ph.D. (Physics) in 1908 when he joined the Faculty of…

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton was born at Dungarvan, County Waterford on the south coast of Ireland on October 6th, 1903, the son of a Methodist Minister from County Tipperary. The ministry demanded that his father move from place to place every few years, and he attended day schools in Banbridge (County Down) and Cookstown (County…

Emilio Segrè was born in Tivoli, Rome, on February 1st, 1905*, as the son of Giuseppe Segrè, industrialist, and Amelia Treves. He went to school in Tivoli and Rome, and entered the University of Rome as a student of engineering in 1922. In 1927 he changed over to physics and took his doctor’s degree in…

Owen Chamberlain was born in San Francisco on July 10, 1920. His father was W. Edward Chamberlain, a prominent radiologist with an interest in physics. His mother’s maiden name was Genevieve Lucinda Owen. He obtained his bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth College in 1941. He entered graduate school in physics at the University of California, but…

Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén was born in Norrköping, Sweden, in 1908. His parents Johannes Alfvén and Anna-Clara Romanus were both practising physicians. Hannes Alfvén studied at Uppsala University from 1926, he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1934, in this same year he was appointed lecturer in physics at Uppsala University. In 1937…

Louis Néel was born in Lyons on 22 November 1904. In 1931 he married Hélène Hourticq; they have three children, Marie Françoise, Attachée d’Administration at the Conseil d’Etat, Marguerite, married to Guély, Professeur agrégée d’histoire, and Pierre, who is a television producer. Louis Néel studied at the Ecole Normal Supérieure in Paris from 1924-1928, where…

P. G. de Gennes was born in Paris, France, in 1932. He majored from the École Normale in 1955. From 1955 to 1959, he was a research engineer at the Atomic Energy Center (Saclay), working mainly on neutron scattering and magnetism, with advice from A. Herpin, A. Abragam and J. Friedel (PhD 1957). During 1959…

I was born in Camberwell, South London, on the 26th of March, 1938. I am told I only made it into the world on the date in question by seven minutes, thereby exhibiting at this early stage the tendency to procrastination which I fear has characterized much of my subsequent career. Not a great deal…

I was born November 28, 1950 in New York City, the son of Alan and Betty Joan Hulse. My parents tell me that I quickly showed an unusual level of curiosity about the world around me as a child, and that this transformed itself into an interest in science at a very early age. For…

I was born on March 29, 1941, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second son of Joseph Hooton Taylor and Sylvia Evans Taylor. When I was seven we moved back to the family farm in Cinnaminson Township, New Jersey, then operated by my paternal grandfather. We were three children, joined later by three more, plus two Evans…