Conyers Herring
William Conyers Herring (born November 15, 1914 in Scotia , New York , † July 23, 2009 in Palo Alto ) was an American physicist . He was winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1984/5 and was Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University .
Academic career
Conyers Herring studied at the University of Kansas (Bachelor 1933) and received his Ph.D in physics from Princeton University in 1937. He was then until 1939 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 1939-1940 instructor in mathematics at Princeton University and 1940 / 41 Instructor in Physics from the University of Mississippi . In 1946 he was Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin . In 1946 he went to Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill , New Jersey, where he stayed until 1978. He then went to Stanford University . From 1981 he was Professor Emeritus there until his death.
Contributions in physics
Conyers Herring played an important role in the development of solid state physics.
He laid the foundations for band structure calculations in metals and semiconductors , which culminated in the discovery of the Orthogonalized Plane Wave Method (OPW) . This made him years ahead with his research. Much of today's solid state physics can be traced back to his studies and papers.
He founded the theoretical physics department at Bell Telephone Laboratories .
Awards and honors
1980 was the Herring Von Hippel Award and the 1984-85 Wolf Prize in Physics along with Philippe Nozières for For their major contributions to the fundamental theory of solids, love especially of the behavior of electronsin metals . In 1980 he received the James Murray Luck Award for Excellence in Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences . He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962).
Web links
- Profile of Conyers Herring (PDF file; 234 kB)
- The contributions of Conyers Herring
- Oral History interview transcript with Conyers Herring 5 August 2000, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
- Biography at the APS
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Herring, Conyers |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Herring, William Conyers (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 15, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Scotia , New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 23, 2009 |
| Place of death | Palo Alto |