Eugen Merzbacher (physicist)

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Eugen Merzbacher (born April 9, 1921 in Berlin ; † June 6, 2013 in Chapel Hill (North Carolina) ) was an American theoretical physicist who dealt with atomic physics and nuclear physics .

As a Jew, Merzbacher fled with his family from Germany to Turkey in 1935, where his father worked as a chemist. He studied at Istanbul University and, after graduating in 1943, taught at a high school in Ankara for four years . In 1947 he went to the USA and studied physics at Harvard University , where he completed his master's degree in 1948 and received his doctorate in 1950 under Julian Schwinger . In 1950/51 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study . He was then at Duke University as a visiting professor and later (until 1969) as a professor. In 1959/1960 he was a visiting scientist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen , where he was able to establish intensive contacts with Niels Bohr . In 1967/68 he was visiting professor at the University of Washington in Seattle . From 1969 he was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , where he stayed until his retirement in 1991. He was twice acting chairman there, and from 1977 to 1982 finally chairman of the physics department. In 1969 he became a Kenan Professor there . In 1972 he received the University's Thomas Jefferson Award. He was a co-founder of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory.

In 1986 he was visiting scholar at the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling and in 1991 Arnold Behring visiting professor at Williams College.

Merzbacher is known for his quantum mechanics textbook, first published in 1961.

He had been a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) since 1962 and was President of the APS in 1990. In 1977 he received the Humboldt Research Award . In 1993 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He was married and had four children.

Fonts

  • Quantum Mechanics, John Wiley, 1961, 1970, 3rd edition (completely revised) 1998, ISBN 0-471-88702-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas Clegg: Obituary of Eugen Merzbacher (1921-2013) . In: Physics Today . October 7, 2013, doi : 10.1063 / PT.5.6001 (English, scitation.org [accessed February 9, 2018]).
  2. ^ APS Fellow Directory. aps.org, accessed February 9, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Merzbacher, Eugene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 6th June 2013
Place of death Chapel Hill, North Carolina