American physicist (1913–2008)
Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an Americanphysicist who shared the 1955Nobel Prize in Physics withPolykarp Kusch "for his discoveries concerning thefine structure of thehydrogen spectrum ". Lamb was able to precisely determine a surprising shift inelectron energies in ahydrogen atom , known as theLamb shift . He was a professor at theUniversity of Arizona College of Optical Sciences .
Lamb was born inLos Angeles ,California , and attendedLos Angeles High School . First admitted in 1930, he received aBachelor of Science in chemistry from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1934. For theoretical work on scattering of neutrons by a crystal, guided byJ. Robert Oppenheimer , he received thePh.D. in physics in 1938.[ 2] Mössbauer Effect , 19 years before its recognition byMössbauer .[ 3]
Lamb was a physics professor atStanford from 1951 to 1956.[ 4] Wykeham Professor of Physics at theUniversity of Oxford from 1956 to 1962, and also taught atYale ,Columbia and theUniversity of Arizona . He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.[ 5] [ 6]
Lamb is remembered as a "rare theorist turned experimentalist" by D. Kaiser.[ 7]
In addition to his crucial and famous contribution toquantum electrodynamics via theLamb shift , in the latter part of his career he paid increasing attention to the field ofquantum measurements .[ 8] [ 9] [ 10] [ 10] interpretational trends on quantum mechanics [ 11] photon .[ 12]
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] 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]
^a b c d e "Willis lamb, Jr. - The Mathematics Genealogy Project" .genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu .^ Stiles, Lori (May 16, 2008)."Willis E. Lamb Jr., 1955 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dies at 94" . The University of Arizona News. Archived from the original on August 28, 2008. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2012 . ^a b Holley, Joe (May 19, 2008)."Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist" .The Washington Post . RetrievedSeptember 27, 2012 . ^ Stanford Report, "Other Nobel connections to the Farm," Oct. 3, 2001 ^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter L" (PDF) .American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Retrieved22 April 2011 .^ "Willis Eugene Lamb, Jr. | Optica" .www.optica.org . Retrieved2024-07-17 .^ D. Kaiser,Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams (University of Chicago, Chicago, 2005). ^ Lamb, W. E. Jr.;Retherford, R. C. (1947)."Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom by a Microwave Method" .Physical Review .72 (3):241– 243.Bibcode :1947PhRv...72..241R .doi :10.1103/PhysRev.72.241 ^ W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement,Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 480 , 407-416 (1986). ^a b W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement, inNoise and Chaos in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1990) pp. 1-14. ^ W. E. Lamb, Super classical quantum mechanics: the best interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics,Am. J. Phys. 69 , 413-421 (2001) ^ Lamb, Willis E."Anti-photon." Applied Physics B 60 (1995): 77-84. ^ 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 ^ "Ursula Lamb, UA historian, dies at 82" . Archived fromthe original on 2015-04-05. Retrieved2015-03-22 .Obituary, University of Arizona, 16 May, 2008. Hans Bethe talking about Willis Lamb (video)Willis E Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.Willis Lamb on Nobelprize.orgFine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom Collection of articles and group photograph (This photograph taken atLasers '92Marlan Scully , W. E. Lamb,John L. Hall , andF. J. Duarte ).Obituary:Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
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