Alvin H. Nielsen (30 May 1910 – 3 November 1994) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

molecular spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

Life

Nielsen was born in

Menominee, Michigan Menominee ( ) is a city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 8,599 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is the county seat of Menominee County, Michigan, Menominee Cou ...

. He graduated from the University of Michigan, taught at the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, and then relocated to the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

in 1935. He spent 1951 to 1952 at the Astrophysical Institute in

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

. Nielsen achieved widespread recognition for his work in

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

and wrote eighty-five publications. He served as chairman of the physics department at the

. He was the brother of

Harald Herborg Nielsen Harald Herborg Nielsen (January 25, 1903 – January 8, 1973) was an Americans, American physicist. Biography He was born in Menominee, Michigan, to Knud Nielsen and Maren Sorensen, immigrant parents who had moved to the United States from Denma ...

Honors

In 1980, the

University of Tennessee at Knoxville The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

named its physics building the ''Alvin H. Nielsen Physics Building'' in Nielsen's honor.

References

External links

Alvin Andreas Herborg Nielsen

Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture ''Tennessee Encyclopedia'' is a reference book on the U.S. state of Tennessee that was published in book form in 1998 and has also been available online since 2002. Contents include history, geography, culture, and biography. The original print ed ...

. 1910 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American physicists People from Menominee, Michigan American people of Danish descent University of Michigan alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society {{US-physicist-stub