Steven Koonin

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Steven Elliot Koonin (born December 12, 1951 in Brooklyn ) is an American theoretical physicist who deals with nuclear physics.

Steven Koonin 2009

Life

Koonin studied physics at Caltech (Bachelor 1972) and received his doctorate in 1975 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the thesis Hydrodynamic Approximations to Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock . In 1976/1977 he was at the Niels Bohr Institute . From 1975 he was an assistant professor at Caltech, where he became an associate professor in 1978 and a full professorship in 1981. From 1989 to 1991 he was chairman of the physics faculty. From 1995 to 2004 he was Provost of Caltech, where he developed, among other things, the project of a telescope with a 30 m mirror diameter ( Thirty Meter Telescope , TMT). From 2004 to 2009 he was chief scientist at British Petroleum in London, where he played a key role in their strategy and research organization for the post-oil age , for example in supporting the establishment of the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley . He is still a professor at Caltech.

From 1977 to 1979 he was a Sloan Research Fellow , in 1980 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society , in 1985 he received the Humboldt Senior US Scientist Award and in 1998 the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Prize . He was a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group and its former chairman. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1991 and the National Academy of Sciences since 2010 . He has served on various advisory boards for the Department of Energy (DOE), the US Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation .

Koonin dealt with many-particle theory in nuclear physics, in particular with extensive numerical calculations, for example for the shell model , where he applied path integral and Monte Carlo methods . He also dealt with applications of nuclear physics in astrophysics as well as with environmental sciences. He is involved in the Earthshine Project, which allows conclusions to be drawn about the fundamental data for studying the global warming of the earth's climate from the illumination of the moon by the earth.

He is a committed advocate of the search for alternative energy sources and was not least for this reason appointed second Undersecretary in the Department of Energy in the Obama administration in 2009.

He wrote an early textbook on scientific computing in physics, published over 200 research papers, and supervised more than 25 doctoral students.

Views on climate change

In an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled Climate Science Is Not Settled , Koonin wrote that current knowledge is not enough for good climate policy ( We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy ). He does not deny climate change as such or human influence ( Climate change is real and affected by human activity ); he considers the human influence on the climate to be small ( human influences […] are physically small in relation to the climate system as a whole ). According to Koonin, the forecasts for global temperature increases due to greenhouse gases would sometimes deviate by a factor of three. He also believes that the impact of climate change on the US economy is likely to be minor.

Fonts

  • Computational Physics . Benjamin Cummings, 1986, Fortran version with DCMeredith 1989, German edition: Physik auf dem Computer . Oldenbourg Verlag, 1987, 2 volumes (and Fortran Version Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990)
  • with Karlheinz Langanke , J. Maruhn (eds.): Computational Nuclear Physics , 2 volumes, Springer 1991, 1993, Volume 1: Nuclear Structure , Volume 2 : Nuclear Reactions (in Volume 2 Koonin, Maruhn: The Time Dependent Hartree Fock Approximation for Nuclear slabs )
  • with D. Langanke, J. Dean: The Monte-Carlo access to the core-shell model . In: Physikalische Blätter , 1994, p. 341
  • Functional integrals in nuclear theory . In: George Bertsch (Ed.): Nuclear Theory . 1981
  • with Dean Langanke: Shell model Monte Carlo Methods . In: Physics Reports, Volume 78, 1997, pp. 1-77, arxiv : nucl-th / 9602006
  • same: Results from Shell Model Monte Carlo Studies . In: Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Physics , Volume 47, 1997, pp. 463-504

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steven Koonin in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used
  2. ^ Climate Science Is Not Settled. The Wall Street Journal , September 19, 2014, accessed March 13, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Physicist Steve Koonin impeaches scientists' climate consensus. Physics Today , September 22, 2014, accessed March 13, 2019 .
  4. ^ The Climate Won't Crash the Economy. NYU Stern , November 26, 2018, accessed March 13, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Koonin, Steven
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koonin, Steven Elliot (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American theoretical physicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn