Robert A.Millikan
Robert Andrews Millikan was born on the 22nd of March, 1868, in Morrison, Ill. (U.S.A.), as the second son of the Reverend Silas Franklin Millikan and Mary Jane Andrews. His grandparents were of the Old New England stock which had come to America before 1750, and were pioneer settlers in the Middle West. He led a rural existence in childhood, attending the Maquoketa High School (Iowa). After working for a short time as a court reporter, he entered Oberlin College (Ohio) in 1886. During his undergraduate course his favourite subjects were Greek and mathematics; but after his graduation in 1891 he took, for two years, a teaching post in elementary physics. It was during this period that he developed his interest in the subject in which he was later to excel. In 1893, after obtaining his mastership in physics, he was appointed Fellow in Physics at Columbia University. He afterwards received his Ph.D. (1895) for research on the polarization of light emitted by incandescent surfaces - using for this purpose molten gold and silver at the U.S. Mint.
On the instigation of his professors, Millikan spent a year (1895-1896) in Germany, at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen. He returned at the invitation of A. A. Michelson, to become assistant at the newly established Ryerson Laboratory at the University of Chicago (1896). Millikan was an eminent teacher, and passing through the customary grades he became professor at that university in 1910, a post which he retained till 1921. During his early years at Chicago he spent much time preparing textbooks and simplifying the teaching of physics. He was author or co-author of the following books: A College Course in Physics, with S.W. Stratton (1898); Mechanics, Molecular Physics, and Heat (1902); The Theory of Optics,with C.R. Mann translated from the German (1903); A First Course in Physics, with H.G. Gale (1906); A Laboratory Course in Physics for Secondary Schools,with H.G. Gale (1907); Electricity, Sound, and Light,with J. Mills (1908); Practical Physics - revision of A First Course(1920); The Electron(1917; rev. eds. 1924, 1935).
As a scientist, Millikan made numerous momentous discoveries, chiefly in the fields of electricity, optics, and molecular physics. His earliest major success was the accurate determination of the charge carried by an electron, using the elegant "falling-drop method"; he also proved that this quantity was a constant for all electrons (1910), thus demonstrating the atomic structure of electricity. Next, he verified experimentally Einstein's all-important photoelectric equation, and made the first direct photoelectric determination of Planck's constant h (1912-1915). In addition his studies of the Brownian movements in gases put an end to all opposition to the atomic and kinetic theories of matter. During 1920-1923, Millikan occupied himself with work concerning the hot-spark spectroscopy of the elements (which explored the region of the spectrum between the ultraviolet and X-radiation), thereby extending the ultraviolet spectrum downwards far beyond the then known limit. The discovery of his law of motion of a particle falling towards the earth after entering the earth's atmosphere, together with his other investigations on electrical phenomena, ultimately led him to his significant studies of cosmic radiation (particularly with ionization chambers).
Throughout his life Millikan remained a prolific author, making numerous contributions to scientific journals. He was not only a foremost scientist, but his religious and philosophic nature was evident from his lectures on the reconciliation of science and religion, and from his books: Science and Life(1924); Evolution in Science and Religion (1927); Science and the New Civilization (1930); Time, Matter, and Values (1932). Shortly before his death he published Electrons (+ and –), Protons, Photons, Neutrons, Mesotrons, and Cosmic Rays (1947; another rev. ed. of The Electron, previously mentioned,) and his Autobiography(1950).
During World War I, Millikan was Vice-Chairman of the National Research Council, playing a major part in developing anti-submarine and meteorological devices. In 1921, he was appointed Director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; he was also made Chairman of the Executive Council of that institute. In 1946 he retired from this post. Professor Millikan has been President of the American Physical Society, Vice-President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was the American member of the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, and the American representative at the International Congress of Physics, known as the Solvay Congress, at Brussels in 1921. He held honorary doctor's degrees of some twenty-five universities, and was a member or honorary member of many learned institutions in his country and abroad. He has been the recipient of the Comstock Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, of the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of Great Britain, and of the Nobel Prize for Physics 1923. He was also made Commander of the Legion of Honour, and received the Chinese Order of Jade.
Millikan was an enthusiastic tennis player, and golf was also one of his recreations.
Professor Millikan married Greta Erwin Blanchard in 1902; they had three sons: Clark Blanchard, Glenn Allen, and Max Franklin.
He died on the 19th of December, 1953, in San Marino, California.
Arthur H.Compton
When Arthur Compton graduated from college he considered taking up a religious career. But his father advised him that he ought to go into science: "Your work in this field may become a more valuable Christian service than if you were to enter the ministry or become a missionary." Such thoughts helped Compton reconcile the two chief influences of his upbringing, devout religion and intellectual work. His father was Professor of Philosophy and later Dean of the College of Wooster, where Arthur was educated; his older brother and good friend Karl, later a noted physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, communicated his own love of science.
At an early point Karl introduced Arthur to the study of X-rays, which was to be the younger brother's main line of work for many years. In 1913 he followed Karl to Princeton, and for his Ph.D. thesis studied the angular distribution of X-rays reflected from crystals. On graduation in 1916 he married a classmate from Wooster College, Betty McCloskey, who became an intelligent and enthusiastic partner in his later activities. Compton was named instructor in physics at the University of Minnesota, one of a number of state-supported schools that were working hard to teach science and to introduce the spirit of pure research. The experiments begun here eventually led Compton to state that magnetization of a material depends not on the orbits of the electrons in it, but on the electron's own elementary characteristics; he was the first to suggest the existence of quantized electron spin.
Meanwhile he found a job in industry. Engineering had always attracted him, and in 1917 he took a well-paid position as research engineer for Westinghouse. In this work (and in later work helping General Electric develop fluorescent lighting) Compton was starting on a path that many American physicists followed. Industrial laboratories were growing even more rapidly than academic ones; before World War I industry employed less than 10 percent of the members of The American Physical Society, and not long after, 25 percent.
In 1919 Compton was awarded one of the first National Research Council fellowships. These gave many American physicists of the 1920's and 1930's a chance to study as they chose, and for Compton this meant X-rays. He took his fellowship to the Cavendish Laboratory in England. But the X-ray apparatus there turned out to be inadequate, so he worked on allied problems with gamma rays. He conclusively verified earlier studies by others that showed puzzling variations of wavelength with scattering angle. Back in the United States as head of the physics department in Washington University, St. Louis, Compton pursued this problem, now working again with X-rays. Since his childhood he had possessed great self-confidence, manual skill, ingenuity and patience. All these combined to help him perfect his apparatus and measure the shift of wavelength with scattering angle that is now known as the Compton effect. Studying this result, he carefully considered and eliminated various attempts at classical explanation. In late 1922 he hit upon the stunningly simple answer, which required special relativity and quantum mechanics, both used in ways that were scarcely understood at the time. When he reported his experimental and theoretical results at meetings of The American Physical Society, Compton stimulated strong interest and strong opposition. But his work quickly triumphed and had a powerful effect on the development of quantum theory. Compton's work, along with the work of others of his generation, marks the emergence of American theoretical physics as the equal of any in the world.
In 1923 Compton took up the professorship at the University of Chicago just vacated by Millikan. Like his predecessor he proved to be a remarkable teacher, attracting and stimulating many students. With their help he continued to produce important papers, first on X-rays and later on cosmic rays. Following the family tradition of Christian service to education, just after the Second World War he reluctantly left physics research to become a highly successful chancellor of Washington University.
During the war Compton was in charge of the "Metallurgical Laboratory" in Chicago where Enrico Fermi and others worked on the fission chain reaction. Leading the Met Lab was a nerve-wracking job, for the scientists there were under intense pressure. They were never sure that German scientists would not be the first to set off a nuclear bomb. Compton and many others had always felt that physics was important to the future of the nation, but this was the first time American physicists had seen that their very lives and freedom might depend on the progress of their research. When the world's first nuclear reactor went critical at the Met Lab on December 2, 1942, physicists became central figures in a new geopolitics.
Carl David Anderson
Carl David Anderson, who was born of Swedish parents - his father was Carl David Anderson and his mother Emma Adolfina Ajaxson - in New York City (USA) on 3rd September, 1905, has spent the bulk of his life in the United States. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1927 with a B.Sc. degree in Physics and Engineering, and was awarded his Ph.D. degree by the same Institute, in 1930. For the period 1930-1933 he was Research Fellow there, subsequently (1933) Assistant Professor of Physics, and Professor of Physics (1939) During the war years (1941-1945) he was also active on projects for the National Defence Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
His early researches were in the field of X-rays. For his doctoral thesis he studied the space distribution of photoelectrons ejected from various gases by X-rays. In 1930, with professor millikan, he began his cosmic-ray studies which led in 1932 to the discovery of the positron. He has studied the energy distribution of cosmic-ray particles and the energy loss of very high speed electrons in traversing matter. In 1933 he and Dr. Neddermeyer obtained the first direct proof that gamma rays from ThC" generate positrons in their passage through material substances. Since 1933 he has continued his work on radiation and fundamental particles. Most of Anderson's researches and discoveries have been published in The Physical Review and Science.
Among the scientific honours bestowed upon him, in addition to the Nobel Prize, may be mentioned the following: Gold Medal of the American Institute of City of New York (1935); Sc.D. of Colgate University (1937); Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1937); Presidential Certificate of Merit (1945); LL.D. Temple University (1949); John Ericsson Medal of the American Society of Swedish Engineers (1960
Charles Kao
Charles Kao physicist awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009, was born in Shanghai (now the Jinshan District of Shanghai) in 1933 completed his secondary education at St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong; and then graduated in electrical engineering in 1957 from the College of Applied Arts and Woolwich (now University of Greenwich), and received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1965 from Imperial College London
Christopher Pissarides
Prof Christopher Pissarides's Professional Career Career
LSE: lectr 1976-82, reader 1982-86, prof 1986-, convener Economics Dept 1996-99, dir Macroeconomics Research Prog 1990-2007, dir Int Summer Sch in Economics 1993-96 and 2001-03; research fell: Centre for Economic Policy Research 1994-, Inst for the Study of Labor (IZA) Bonn 2001-; visiting prof: Harvard Univ 1979-80, Princeton Univ 1984, European Univ Inst 1989, Univ of Calif Berkeley 1989-90; Houblon-Norman fell Bank of England 1994; memb Bd Review of Economic Studies 1983-92; bd chm Economica 2007- (ed 1980-83, assoc ed 1996-), assoc ed Economic Jl 2000-05; conslt: World Bank, EU, OECD; expert Treasy Ctee House of Commons 2001-05, memb Cyprus Monetary Policy Ctee 2000-07, non-national sr assoc Forum for Economic Research in the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey 2002-, memb Employment Taskforce EC 2003-04; memb Interim Governing Bd Univ of Cyprus 1989-95; jt winner IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2005; hon doctorate Univ of Cyprus 2009; memb: Royal Economic Soc (memb Cncl 1996-2001), European Economic Assoc (memb Cncl 2005-, vice-pres 2009, pres elect 2010, pres 2011); fell Econometric Soc (memb Cncl 2005-), FBA 2002, fell Soc of Labor Economists 2008; Repub of Cyprus Aristeion for the Arts, Literature and Sciences 2008
Prof Christopher
Robert C. Merton is University Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, where he was the George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration from 1988 to 1998 and the John and Natty McArthur University Professor from 1998 until his retirement in 2010. He is currently the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he previously served on the finance faculty from 1970 until 1988. Merton is past President of the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.
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