George E. Pake

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George Edward Pake (born April 1, 1924 in Jefferson (Ohio) , † March 4, 2004 in Tucson , Arizona ) was an American physicist. He is best known as the founder of the Xerox Parc Research Center.

Education

Pake grew up in Kent (Ohio) , studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (first aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering, then physics) with a bachelor's and master's degree in 1945 with Immanuel Estermann ( he was exempt from military service due to scoliosis ) and was admitted in 1948 PhD in physics from Harvard University (with Edward Purcell , who was developing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) at the time). The dissertation was about NMR of water molecules in solids - after Nicolaas Bloembergen had previously examined NMR of water in a liquid state in his dissertation at Purcell. As expected, Pake was able to confirm a larger line width, but also a doublet splitting due to the different spin orientations of the protons of the hydrogen. The splitting was dependent on the distance between the hydrogen atoms and the orientation to the external magnetic field and Pake was able to determine a value for the distance that was in agreement with that from the gas spectra of water as well as the quantum-mechanically correct formula for the splitting (modified by a factor of 3 / 2 by spin degeneration). His experiment also provided values ​​for the magnetic moment of the proton. Further NMR studies, which he carried out with Herbert Gutowsky , confirmed the suitability of NMR for the study of solids.

Professorships

He then taught at Washington University , where he became head of the physics faculty in 1952. In 1954/55 he was visiting professor at Stanford University , to which he switched entirely in 1956. In 1962 he was visiting professor at the University of Illinois (with Charles Slichter ), but then moved back to Washington University, where he was provost of the university from 1962 to 1969. In this capacity he brought Wesley A. Clark to the university, who in the 1960s had created a forerunner of the personal computer including local computer networks with the LINC computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but whose work at MIT was not further promoted has been. In 1965 he became a member of the Scientific Advisory Board to US President Lyndon B. Johnson and later Richard Nixon . He also prepared a report on the state of physics (Pake Report) for the National Academy of Sciences. In 1969 he resigned from the office of Provost and became a physics professor again.

Xerox Parc

In 1970 he left the university to the Xerox PARC research center of Xerox in Palo Alto to found the invitation of the research director of Xerox Jack Goldman (he knew even from Carnegie Tech and various committees in Washington). It was there in the 1970s that the foundations for personal computer systems (Alto), client-server architectures and graphic user interfaces, Ethernet, object-oriented programming ( Smalltalk , Alan Kay and others) and the laser printer were laid. He invited the inventor of the laser printer, Gary Starkweather , to the Xerox Parc Center in 1971 after his supervisor George White at the University of Rochester Pake brought him to the attention (Starkweather received no funding from the University of Rochester for his development).

To set up the IT department, Pake got Bob Taylor from ARPA , who had already helped him recruit Wesley Clark at Washington University. Among other things, they brought Butler Lampson and Charles Thacker from the Berkeley Computer Company, which had run into financial difficulties.

In 1986 he retired from Xerox. He then founded the Institute for Research in Learning, of which he was director until 1988.

research

As a physicist, he dealt with experimental solid-state physics. In addition to NMR, he dealt in particular with electron spin resonance and wrote a textbook about it. His series of articles on NMR from 1950 was also widely used as an introduction by students.

Honors

In 1952 Pake became a fellow of the American Physical Society . In 1986 he received the IRI Medal of the Industrial Research Institute and in 1987 the National Medal of Science . In 1966 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He had been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1976 . The APS awards the George E. Pake Prize in his honor . In 1977 he was President of the American Physical Society.

Fonts

  • Nuclear magnetic resonance in bulk matter , Physics Today, 1993, issue 10
  • Paramagnetic resonance - an introductory monograph , Benjamin 1962
  • with Thomas L. Estle The physical principles of electron paramagnetic resonance , Benjamin, 2nd edition 1973
  • with Eugene Feenberg Notes on the quantum theory of angular momentum , Addison-Wesley 1953, reprinted in Dover 1999
  • A graduate student and young faculty physicists wanders into NMR , in DM Grant, RK Harris (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance , Wiley 1996, pp. 526-530
  • Research at Xerox Parc- a founder's assessment , IEEE Spectrum, October 1985, pp. 54-61

He also wrote memoirs with Andrew Szanton.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Further teachers were Frederick Seitz and Otto Stern
  2. ↑ Another teacher was Julian Schwinger , with whom he heard quantum mechanics
  3. ↑ Pake Nuclear resonance absorption in hydrated crystals: fine structure of the proton line , J. Chem. Phys., Volume 16, 1948, pp. 327-332
  4. ^ Pake Fundamentals of nuclear magnetic resonance absorption , Part 1, 2, American Journal of Physics, Volume 18, 1950, pp. 162-170, 473-486
  5. ↑ APS Jellow Archive , accessed October 1, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Pake, George E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pake, George Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Jefferson (Ohio)
DATE OF DEATH March 4, 2004
Place of death Tucson , Arizona