Wolfgang Panofsky

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Wolfgang Kurt Hermann "Pief" Panofsky (born April 24, 1919 in Berlin ; † September 24, 2007 in Los Altos , California , USA ) was an American particle physicist who played a key role in the development and founding of the SLAC .

Life

Panofsky was the son of the art historian Erwin Panofsky . He left Germany in 1934 because of the persecution of the Jews by the National Socialists. He graduated from Princeton University in 1938 with a bachelor's degree, and in 1942 received his doctorate from Caltech . From 1945 to 1951 he was an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley , then professor at Stanford University .

Wolfgang Panofsky had been an advisor to the US governments on science and national security issues since 1945 . Until 2003 he was a member of the independent advisory committee of the "National Nuclear Security Administration", the agency responsible for the development, construction and conservation of nuclear weapons .

In 1957 he advocated the construction of the linear particle accelerator SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) in Palo Alto, of which he was director from 1962 to 1984.

Panofsky was one of the signatories of the protest letter from the " Union of Concerned Scientists " to George Bush , in which the US government is accused of manipulating scientific results.

In 1954 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences , 1962 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and 1985 the American Philosophical Society . The Russian Academy of Sciences , he belonged since 1988 and the French Academy of Sciences since 1989 as a foreign member.

He died in September 2007 at the age of 88.

Awards (selection)

Fonts (selection)

  • with WM Woodward, & GB Yodh: Pion Production by Inelastic Scattering of Electrons in Hydrogen . Phys. Rev. 102, 1392-1398 (1956)
  • with Melba Phillips : Classical Electricity and Magnetism , Reading / Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley, 1962
  • Particles and Policy , Woodbury, NY. AIP Press, 1994
  • Panofsky on Physics, Politics and Peace. Pief Remembers , Springer Verlag, 2007, ISBN 9780387697314 (memories)
  • "Basic physics in the USA had practically ceased," a conversation with Wolfgang Panofsky, in: Michael Schaaf: Heisenberg, Hitler and the bomb. Conversations with contemporary witnesses. Gütersloh 2018, ISBN 978-3-86225-115-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2004 Scientist Statement on Restoring Scientific Integrity to Federal Policy Making. Union of Concerned Scientists, accessed October 22, 2018 . , List of signatories of the letter. Retrieved October 22, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Member History: Wolfgang KH Panofsky. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 6, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Honorary Senators of the University of Hamburg ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ WKH Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics. APS, accessed October 22, 2018 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Panofsky, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Panofsky, Wolfgang Kurt Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American particle physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 2007
Place of death Los Altos (California)