H. Richard Crane

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Horace Richard Crane (born November 4, 1907 in Turlock , California - † April 19, 2007 ) was an American experimental physicist.

Crane studied at Caltech ( Bachelor 1930), where he received his PhD in 1934 . Then he was from 1935 instructor at the University of Michigan , from 1938 Assistant Professor and from 1946 Professor. From 1965 to 1972 he headed the faculty there and in 1978 he retired .

During World War II he was first at the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then at the Proximity Fuse Project for the development of detonators for missiles at the Carnegie Institution.

Crane became known for measuring the anomalous magnetic moment (g-2 factor) of the free electron in the early 1950s through the precession of the spin in a magnetic field, a precision test of quantum electrodynamics .

In the early 1950s he developed with others Racetrack - Synchrotron , the model for many future accelerator was (the name comes in shape, two semicircles connected by two straights).

Later he dealt with biophysics (theoretical analysis of the double helix structure in biomolecules ) and radiocarbon dating .

In 1967 he received the Davisson-Germer Prize in Atomic Physics and in 1986 the National Medal of Science . In 1937 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society . He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1966 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1971 . In 1965 he was president of the American Association of Physics Teachers , for whose journal The Physics Teacher he was a columnist. This resulted in a book and exhibition experiments at the Hands on Museum in Ann Arbor . From 1971 to 1975 he was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Physics.

literature

  • How it happened that we measured g-2. A tale of serendipity. In: Physics in Perspective. Volume 2, 2000, p. 135
  • How things work. American Association of Physics Teachers 1992
  • Explore and Discover. Exhibition guide, Ann Arbor Hands on Museum

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Measurements on bound electrons took place before, for example by Polkarp Kusch , Foley. However, these measurements were fraught with greater uncertainties.
  2. ↑ Louisell, Pidd, Crane: An experimental measurement of the gyromagnetic ratio of the free electron. In: Physical Review. Volume 94, 1954, pp. 7-16, abstract . Improved in Crane, Schupp, Pidd: Measurement of the g factor of free high energy electrons. In: Physical Review. Volume 121, 1961, pp. 1-17
personal data
SURNAME Crane, H. Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crane, Horace Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American experimental physicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Turlock , California
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 2007