Nobel Prize

Hideki Yukawa was born in Tokyo, Japan, on 23rd January, 1907, the third son of Takuji Ogawa, who later became Professor of Geology at Kyoto University. The future Laureate was brought up in Kyoto and graduated from the local university in 1929. Since that time he has been engaged on investigations in theoretical physics, particularly…

Alfred Kastler was born in Guebwiller in Alsace on May 3, 1902. He followed his early studies at the school in his native town, and continued at the Oberrealschule of Colmar, which became the Lycee Bartholdi in 1918, when Alsace was returned to France. He entered the École Normale Superieure in 1921, and left in…

John William Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh, was born on November 12, 1842 at Langford Grove, Maldon, Essex, as the son of John James Strutt, second Baron, and his wife Clara Elizabeth La Touche, eldest daughter of Captain Richard Vicars, R. E. He was one of the very few members of higher nobility who won fame…

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…

Clinton Joseph Davisson was born at Bloomington, Illinois, U.S.A., October 22, 1881, son of Joseph Davisson, an artisan, native of Ohio, descendant of early Dutch and French settlers of Virginia, Union veteran of the American Civil War, and Mary Calvert, a school-teacher, native of Pennsylvania, of English and Scotch parentage. He attended the Bloomington public…

I was born on Aug. 7, 1946 in Roanoke, Virginia, a small city near Blacksburg where my father was a young faculty member at the school now called Virginia Tech. For some generations, my family on both sides has been populated with scientists and school teachers. My father, Robert E. Mather, was starting his research…

George Paget Thomson was born in 1892 at Cambridge, the son of the late (then Professor of Physics at Cambridge University), a Nobel Prize winner who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the discovery of the electron, and Rose Elisabeth Paget, daughter of the late Sir George Paget, Regius Professor of Medicine at Cambridge.…

Lev Davidovic Landau was born in Baku on January 22, 1908, as the son of an engineer and a physician. After graduating from the Physical Department of Leningrad University at the age of 19, he began his scientific career at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute. The years 1929 – 1931 he spent abroad, partly as a…

I was born in Washington, D.C. on October 14, 1914. My father was a photographer at the National Bureau of Standards. A self-educated man, he never finished high school, but, in his career at the National Bureau of Standards, he made many useful inventions, and eventually became chief of the Photographic Technology Section. His early…

In Memory of Marc Antonio Giacconi and dedicated to my wife, Mirella, and to our daughters, Anna and Guia. I. Early yearsI was born in Genoa, Italy, on October 6, 1931, but I spent most of my life until 1956 in Milano. I was the only child. My mother, Elsa Canni Giacconi, was a teacher…