Max Dresden

Max Dresden (born April 23, 1918 in Amsterdam , † October 29, 1997 in Palo Alto ) was a Dutch - American theoretical physicist .

Live and act

Dresden studied at the universities of Amsterdam and Leiden , but went to the USA before the Second World War, where he received his doctorate from the University of Michigan (PH.D. 1946). In 1949 he became a US citizen. From 1946 to 1957 he was, most recently as a professor, at the University of Kansas , from 1957 to 1960 at Northwestern University (as chairman of the physics department), from 1960 to 1964 at the University of Iowa and then at State until his retirement in 1989 University of New York at Stony Brook (SUNY), where he was director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. He won four teaching awards at Stony Brook and supervised a total of 63 PhD students. After his retirement he was visiting scientist at SLAC and visiting professor for the history of physics at Stanford University . He was also u. a. at Fermilab , Johns Hopkins University , Argonne National Laboratory , CERN and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen .

Dresden began with work on statistical mechanics (including condensation of gases, superconductivity), but later also worked in elementary particle physics and quantum field theory. He also worked intensively on the history of physics, for which his personal acquaintance with many well-known physicists since the 1930s provided the background.

Dresden was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . He was married twice and had four children.

Fonts

• HAKramers - between tradition and revolution , Springer 1987
• Kramer's contribution to statistical mechanics , Physics Today, September 1988
• Editor with Lillian Hoddeson , Laurie Brown : From Pions to Quarks - Particle Physics in the 1950s , Cambridge University Press 1989 (International Symposium on the history of particle physics, Fermilab).
• Editor with Laurie Brown, Lillian Hoddeson, Michael Riordan: The rise of the standard model , Cambridge UP 1997
• On personal styles and tastes in physics , in CSLiu, STYau (editor) Chen Ning Yang - a great physicist of the 20th century , International Press 1995
• Non equilibrium statistical mechanics or the vagaries of time evolution , in Laurie Brown, Abraham Pais, Brian Pippard (editors) 20.century physics , Vol. 1, 1995, IOP Publishing / AIP Press

Web links

• Peter B. Kahn: Remembering Max Dresden (1918-1997) . In: Phys. perspective. tape 5 , 2003, p. 206-233 , doi : 10.1007 / s00016-003-0167-x .
• Peter B. Kahn, Chen Ning Yang, Martin L. Perl, Helen R. Quinn: Max Dresden (obituary) . In: Physics Today . tape 51 , no. 6 , 2008, p. 90 , doi : 10.1063 / 1.882286 (English, scitation.org ).
• David F. Salisbury: Memorial will be held for physicist Max Dresden. Stanford University, November 4, 1997 (English).