Marvin Leonard Goldberger | |
|---|---|
 Goldberger in 1978 | |
| 4th President of theCalifornia Institute of Technology | |
| In office 1978–1987 | |
| Preceded by | Harold Brown |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Eugene Everhart |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1922-10-22)October 22, 1922 |
| Died | November 26, 2014(2014-11-26) (aged 92) La Jolla,California, U.S. |
| Spouse | Mildred Goldberger |
| Other names | Murph |
| Scientific career | |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Crossing symmetry |
| Awards | Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (1961) |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The interaction of high energy neutrons with heavy nuclei (1948) |
| Doctoral advisor | Enrico Fermi |
| Doctoral students | Fred Gilman Martin B. Einhorn (1968) |
Marvin Leonard "Murph"Goldberger (October 22, 1922 – November 26, 2014) was an American theoreticalphysicist and formerpresident of theCalifornia Institute of Technology.[1][2]
Goldberger was born inChicago,Illinois. He went on to receive hisB.S. at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (nowCarnegie Mellon University), and Ph.D. in physics from theUniversity of Chicago in 1948. His advisor on thesis,Interaction of High-Energy Neutrons with Heavy Nuclei, wasEnrico Fermi.[3][4] While serving in the Army shortly after graduation, he was assigned to the Manhattan Project, where he worked under renowned physicist Enrico Fermi from 1943 to 1945.[5]
Goldberger was a postdoc at MIT at least by 1951 where he shared a communal physics office with at leastMurray Gell-Mann where they worked together on various projects and he encouraged him to join him at Chicago 1952 onwards,[6] before he became professor of physics atPrinceton University from 1957 through 1977. He received theDannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics in 1961,[7] and in 1963 was elected to theU.S. National Academy of Sciences.[8] In 1965 he was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9] In 1980, he was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society.[10] From 1978 through 1987 he served as president ofCaltech. He was the Director of theInstitute for Advanced Study from 1987 to 1991.[11] From 1991 to 1993 he was a professor of physics at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. From 1993 until his death in November 2014, he served on the faculty of theUniversity of California, San Diego, first as a professor of physics and then as a professor emeritus. Goldberger also served as Dean of Natural Sciences for UC San Diego from 1994 to 1999.[2]
In 1954, he andMurray Gell-Mann introducedcrossing symmetry.[12] In 1958, he andSam Bard Treiman published the so-calledGoldberger–Treiman relation.[13]
He was a participant in 1958'sProject 137 and the first chairman ofJASON. He was involved in nuclear arms control efforts. He also advised a number of major corporations; for example he was on the board of directors ofGeneral Motors for 12 years.[14]
Several of his doctoral students were elected Fellows of the American Physical Society: Allan N. Kaufman in 1962, Cyrus D. Cantrell in 1980, and Martin B. Einhorn in 1991.[15] Goldberger died in 2014 inLa Jolla,California. His wifeMildred Goldberger, who also worked on the Manhattan Project, had previously died in 2006.[16][17] Upon his death he was survived by two sons and three grandchildren.[2]
He left Caltech to become director of the Institute for Advanced Study, the Princeton, N.J., think tank that had been home to such luminaries as Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Goldberger held that post from 1987 to 1991, when he moved to UCLA to teach physics. He spent his last years at UC San Diego, where he was dean of the school of natural sciences from 1994 to 1999.
Dr. Goldberger, a former president of the California Institute of Technology, is a wry man who is able, despite his revered office (it belonged to J. Robert Oppenheimer from 1947 to 1966), to poke fun at himself. Given such an independent and strong-willed faculty, he said he sees the director's job as more that of pit crew than of car driver in this intellectual road race.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | 4th President of theCalifornia Institute of Technology 1978–1987 | Succeeded by |
