John Clarke Slater (December 22, 1900 – July 25, 1976) was a noted 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 ...
who made major contributions to the theory of the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and solids.
He also made major contributions to microwave electronics.
[ He received a B.S. in Physics from the ]University of Rochester
The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.
The University of Roc ...
in 1920 and a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1923, then did post-doctoral work at the universities of Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
(briefly) and Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
. On his return to the U.S. he joined the Physics Department at Harvard.
In 1930, Karl Compton
Karl Taylor Compton (September 14, 1887 – June 22, 1954) was a prominent American physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1930 to 1948.
The early years (1887–1912)
Karl Taylor Compton was born in ...
, the President of MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
, appointed Slater as Chairman of the MIT Department of Physics. He recast the undergraduate physics curriculum, wrote 14 books between 1933 and 1968, and built a department of major international prestige. During World War II, his work on microwave transmission, done partly at the Bell Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
and in association with the MIT Radiation Laboratory
The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 ...
, was of major importance in the development of radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
.
In 1950, Slater founded the Solid State and Molecular Theory Group (SSMTG) within the Physics Department. The following year, he resigned the chairmanship of the department and spent a year at the Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
of the Atomic Energy Commission. He was appointed Institute Professor of Physics and continued to direct work in the SSMTG until he retired from MIT in 1965, at the mandatory retirement age of 65.
He then joined the Quantum Theory Project of the University of Florida as Research Professor, where the retirement age allowed him to work for another five years. The SSMTG has been regarded[ as the precursor of the MIT Center for Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE).] His scientific autobiography and three interviews[''Oral History Transcript - Dr. John C. Slater'', interviewed by Charles Weiner, Niels Bohr Center and Archives for the History of Physics. Session I, Gainesville, February 23, 1970.]
/ref> present his views on research, education and the role of science in society.
Slater was nominated for the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
, in both physics and chemistry, numerous times, and he received the National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...
in 1970. In 1964, Slater and his then-92 year-old father, who had headed the Department of English at the University of Rochester many years earlier, were awarded honorary degrees by that university. Slater's name is part of the terms Bohr-Kramers-Slater theory, Slater determinant
In quantum mechanics, a Slater determinant is an expression that describes the wave function of a multi-fermionic system. It satisfies anti-symmetry requirements, and consequently the Pauli principle, by changing sign upon exchange of two electro ...
and Slater orbital Slater-type orbitals (STOs) are functions used as atomic orbitals in the linear combination of atomic orbitals molecular orbital method. They are named after the physicist John C. Slater, who introduced them in 1930.
They possess exponential decay ...
.
Early life and education
Slater's father, born in Virginia, who had been an undergraduate at Harvard, became head of the English Department at the University of Rochester, which would also be Slater's undergraduate alma mater. Slater's youthful interests were with things mechanical, chemical, and electrical. A family helper, a college girl, finally put a name (then little-known as a subject) to his set of interests: ''physics''. When Slater entered the University of Rochester in 1917 he took physics courses and as a senior assisted in the physics laboratory and did his first independent research for a special honors thesis, a measurement of the dependence on pressure of the intensities of the Balmer lines of hydrogen.
He was accepted into Harvard graduate school, with the choice of a fellowship or assistantship. He chose the assistantship, during which he worked for Percy W. Bridgman
Percy Williams Bridgman (April 21, 1882 – August 20, 1961) was an American physicist who received the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on the scientific method and on other as ...
. He followed Bridgman's courses in fundamental physics and was introduced into the then-new quantum physics with the courses of E. C. Kemble. He completed the work for the Ph.D. in three years by publishing his (1924) paper ''Compressibility of the Alkali Halides'', which embodied the thesis work he had done under Bridgman. His heart was in theory, and his first publication was not his doctor's thesis, but a note (1924) to Nature on ''Radiation and Atoms.''
After receiving his Ph.D., Slater held a Hamard Sheldon Fellowship for study in Europe. He spent a period in Cambridge, England, before going to Copenhagen. On returning to America, Slater joined the Harvard Physics Department.
Professional career
Chairing the Department of Physics at MIT
When he became President of MIT, Karl Compton
Karl Taylor Compton (September 14, 1887 – June 22, 1954) was a prominent American physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1930 to 1948.
The early years (1887–1912)
Karl Taylor Compton was born in ...
"courted" Slater to chair the Physics Department. "Administration (of the Department) took up a good deal of time, more time than he (Slater) would have preferred. John was a good chairman." The following items from the successive issues of the annual MIT ''President's Report''[''President's Report'', Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bulletin, volume 622, number 1, 1930](_blank)
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1962
1963
1964
/ref> trace the growth and visibility of the Department under Slater's leadership, before World War II, and the ability of the Department to contribute to defense during the war. The first two quotations are from chapters written by Compton in the successive Reports. The other quotations come from the sections about the department, that Slater wrote. These include statements affecting policies in physics education and research at large, and show his deep commitment to both.
* 1930: "The selection of Dr. John C. Slater as head of the (Physics) Department will strengthen ... undergraduate and graduate work ... the limitation of space has retarded the development of graduate work ... the total number of undergraduates being 53 and ... graduate students 16." (p. 21)
* 1931: "This has been the first year of the Department in charge of its new Head, Professor John C. Slater ... the subjects actively (researched include) 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 ...
, Applied Optics, Discharge of Electricity in Gases, Magneto-Optical Phenomena, Studies of Dielectric
In electromagnetism, a dielectric (or dielectric medium) is an electrical insulator that can be polarised by an applied electric field. When a dielectric material is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the mate ...
s, and various aspects of modern and classical theoretical physics." (p. 42)
* 1932: In the list of papers published by MIT faculty, items 293 to 340 are listed under Department of Physics. (p. 206-208)
* 1933: "The George Eastman Research Laboratory, into which the Department moved at the beginning of the year, provides for the first time a suitable home for research in Physics at the Institute". Slater states that outside recognition is shown by holders of six National, an International, and a Rockefeller Research Fellowship choosing to come to the Department. Slater describes the dedication of the Laboratory, the hosting of meetings of the International Astronomical Union, the American Physical Society, and a Spectroscopic conference, and ends: "In general the year has been one of settling down to work under satisfactory conditions, after the more difficult transition of the preceding year." (p. 96-98)
* 1934: "A number of advances in undergraduate teaching have been made or planned." Among the "most conspicuous events" in the department, "we acted as host" to meetings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and a national Spectroscopic Conference, where "the main topic was relation to biology and related fields." Advances in research have been "taking advantage of the unusual facilities" in the Department, and include the work of Warren on structure of liquids, Mueller on dielectric properties, Stockbarger on crystal physics, Harrison
Harrison may refer to:
People
* Harrison (name)
* Harrison family of Virginia, United States
Places
In Australia:
* Harrison, Australian Capital Territory, suburb in the Canberra district of Gungahlin
In Canada:
* Inukjuak, Quebec, or "Po ...
on automating spectroscopic measurement, Wulff on hyperfine structure, Boyce on spectra of nebulae, Van der Graaff on high voltage and nuclear research, and Stratton and Morse
Morse may refer to:
People
* Morse (surname)
* Morse Goodman (1917-1993), Anglican Bishop of Calgary, Canada
* Morse Robb (1902–1992), Canadian inventor and entrepreneur
Geography Antarctica
* Cape Morse, Wilkes Land
* Mount Morse, Churchi ...
on ellipsoidal wave functions. (p. 104-106)
* 1935: Considerable attention is given to major improvements in undergraduate teaching. The extensive comments on research mention the arrival of Robley Evans and his work on a field new to the department—radioactivity, with special attention to nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine or nucleology is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging, in a sense, is "radiology done inside out" because it records radiation emitting ...
. (p. 102-103)
* 1936: "The most important development of the year in the Department has been the growing recognition of the significance of applied physics. There has been a tendency in the past among physicists to take interest only in the direct line of development of their science, and to neglect its applications." Slater develops this theme at length, and describes actions within the undergraduate, graduate and faculty work of the Department and at the national level to develop Applied Physics
Applied physics is the application of physics to solve scientific or engineering problems. It is usually considered to be a bridge or a connection between physics and engineering.
"Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination ...
. The description of the flourishing basic research refers to ten different areas, including the upsurge in work on radioactivity. (p. 131-134).
* 1937 to 1941: These continue in the same vein. But world affairs begin to impact. The 1941 report ends: "The X-ray branch had as a guest Professor Rose C. L. Mooney of Newcomb College, who was prevented by the war from carrying on research in Europe under a Guggenheim Fellowship ... As the year ends, the National Defense effort is beginning to claim the services of a number of staff members. Presumably the coming year will see a large intensification of the effort, though it is hoped that the interference with the regular research and teaching will not be too severe." (p. 129)
* 1942: This told a very different story. The defense effort had begun to "involve a considerable number of personnel, as well as a good deal of administrative work. With the opening of the Radiation Laboratory of the National Defense Research Committee at the Institute, a number of members of the Department's staff have become associated with that laboratory" followed by a list of over 10 senior faculty who had, and several more gone to other defense projects. (p. 110-111)
* 1943 to 1945: Slater took leave of absence as Chair, to work on topics of importance in radar. The American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
selected him as the Josiah Willards Gibbs lecturer for 1945.
* 1946: Slater had returned as Chair. He starts his report: "The year of reconversion from war to peace has been one of the very greatest activity. ... Physics during the war achieved an importance which has probably never before been attained by any other science. The Institute, as the leading technical institution of the country and probably the world, should properly have a physics department unequaled anywhere." He lists plans to meet this objective, that proliferate his administrative responsibilities. (p. 133-143)
:Setting up interdepartmental laboratories, by restructuring existing laboratories using, as a model, the conversion of the Radiation Laboratory
The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 ...
into the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) by Julius Stratton and Albert Hill.
:Financing student assistantships and helping shape the role of government financing on an unprecedented scale.
:Overseeing Robley Evans' Radioactivity Center (containing a cyclotron) and Van de Graaff's High Voltage Laboratory.
:Recruiting physicists familiar with the Manhattan project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
to build the Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Engineering. This was directed by Jerrold Zacharias
Jerrold Reinach Zacharias (January 23, 1905 – July 16, 1986) was an American physicist and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as an education reformer. His scientific work was in the area of nuclear physics ...
. Its first members included Bruno Rossi
Bruno Benedetto Rossi (; ; 13 April 1905 – 21 November 1993) was an Italian experimental physicist. He made major contributions to particle physics and the study of cosmic rays. A 1927 graduate of the University of Bologna, he became in ...
and Victor Weisskopf
Victor Frederick "Viki" Weisskopf (also spelled Viktor; September 19, 1908 – April 22, 2002) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Boh ...
.
:Setting up the Acoustics Laboratory, directed by Richard Bolt
Richard Henry Bolt (April 22, 1911 – January 13, 2002) was an American physics professor at MIT with an interest in acoustics. He was one of the founders of the company Bolt, Beranek and Newman, which built the ARPANET, a forerunner of the In ...
, and the Spectroscopy Laboratory directed by the chemist Richard Lord.
* 1947: With the hiring of staff and building of laboratories well in hand, Slater begins: "The year in the Physics Department, as in the rest of the Institute, was one of starting the large-scale teaching of returned veterans and other students whose academic careers had been interrupted by the war." He goes on to discuss the needs of students, in the entire Institute, for Physics courses and laboratories, with particular mention of the upsurge in electronics and nuclear science, and he reports briefly on the developments following from his previous report. (p. 139-141)
* 1948: Slater begins "The current year is the first since the war in which the department has approached normal operation. No new major projects or changes of policy have been introduced." But the department that he has built is vastly different from what it was when he started. Sixteen master's degrees and 47 doctor's degrees were granted. Twenty-five Ph.D. recipients got academic appointments in MIT and other universities. Research flourished, and many scientists visited from European universities and elsewhere in the U.S. (p. 141-143)
* 1949: The new-styled 'normalcy' continued. "The approach to a steady postwar state continued with few unusual occurrences." The graduate curriculum has been revised and cryogenics enhanced. The continued growth of staff, research grants, industrial contacts and volume of publication are treated as matters of continuity, recognizing at the end, that: "The administrative load of the department has grown so much (it became) wise to appoint an executive officer". Nathaniel Frank, who had worked with John Slater for nearly two decades accepted the post. (p. 149-153)
* 1950: The future of the Department had been set. There were "few unexpected changes". And with the continued growth, "almost every research project in the Department has concerned itself with undergraduate research". (p. 189-191)
* 1951: Jay Stratton writes "Professor John C. Slater resigned as Head of the Department of Physics and has been appointed Harry B. Higgins Professor of the Solid State, the first appointment which will carry the title ''Institute Professor.'' Professor Slater has been granted a leave of absence for the coming year to carry on research at Brookhaven National Laboratory." (p. 30)
Throughout his Chairmanship, Slater taught, wrote books, produced ideas of major scientific importance, and interacted with colleagues throughout the local, national and international scientific communities. At the personal level, Morse states: "Through most of (the 1930s) he looked more like an undergraduate than a department head ... he could render his guests weak with laughter simply by counting ... in Danish." Much later, S.B. Trickey wrote "While I got to know him reasonably well, I was never able to call J.C. Slater by his given name. His seeming aloofness turned out more to be shyness."[Trickey, ''Of science and scientists in QTP'', Molecular Physics, 108 (21-23) 2841-2845, 2010.](_blank)
/ref>
Research
Atoms, molecules and solids: research preceding World War II
Returning in time to 1920, Slater had gone to Harvard to work for a Ph.D. with Percy Bridgman
Percy Williams Bridgman (April 21, 1882 – August 20, 1961) was an American physicist who received the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on the scientific method and on other as ...
, who studied the behaviour of substances under very high pressures. Slater measured the compressibility of common salt and ten other alkali halides—compounds of lithium, sodium, potassium and rubidium, with fluorine, chlorine and bromine. He described the results as "exactly in accord with Bohr's recent views of the relation between electron structure and the periodic table". This brought Slater's observation concerning the mechanical properties of ionic crystals into line with the theory that Bohr had based on the spectroscopy of gaseous elements. He wrote the alkali halide paper in 1923, having "by the summer of 1922" been "thoroughly indoctrinated ... with quantum theory", in part by the courses of Edwin Kemble following a fascination with Bohr's work during his undergraduate days.[J.H. Van Vleck, ''Remarks, Slater Memorial Session'', American Physical Society, Chicago, 7 February 1977, quoted in Morse's ''Biographical Memoir''.] In 1924, Slater went to Europe on a Harvard Sheldon Fellowship. After a brief stay at the University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, he went on to the University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
, where "he explained to Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...
and Kramers his idea (that was) a sort of forerunner of the duality principle, (hence) the celebrated paper" on the work that others dubbed the Bohr-Kramers-Slater (BKS) theory. "Slater suddenly became an internationally known name.". Interest in this "old-quantum-theory" paper subsided with the arrival of full quantum mechanics, but Philp M. Morse's biography states that "in recent years it has been recognized that the correct ideas in the article are those of Slater." Slater discusses his early life through the trip to Europe in a transcribed interview.
Slater joined the Harvard faculty on his return from Europe in 1925, then moved to MIT in 1930. His research papers covered many topics. A year by year selection, up to his switch to work relating to radar includes:
* 1924: the theoretical part of his Ph.D. work, the Bohr-Kramers-Slater (BKS) theory,
* 1925: widths of spectral lines; ideas that came very close to the electron spin
In atomic physics, the electron magnetic moment, or more specifically the electron magnetic dipole moment, is the magnetic moment of an electron resulting from its intrinsic properties of spin (physics), spin and electric charge. The value of the ...
s principle,[J.C. Slater, ''Interpretation of the hydrogen and helium spectra'', Proceedings of the National Academy, 11, 732-738, 1925.]
* 1926 and 1927: explicit attention to electron spin
In atomic physics, the electron magnetic moment, or more specifically the electron magnetic dipole moment, is the magnetic moment of an electron resulting from its intrinsic properties of spin (physics), spin and electric charge. The value of the ...
, and to the Schrödinger equation
The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the ...
;
* 1928: the Hartree self-consistent field,[J.C. Slater, ''The self-consistent field and the structure of atoms'', Physical Review, 32, 339-348, 1928;] the Rydberg formula
In atomic physics, the Rydberg formula calculates the wavelengths of a spectral line in many chemical elements. The formula was primarily presented as a generalization of the Balmer series for all atomic electron transitions of hydrogen. It was ...
,[J.C. Slater ''Central fields and the Rydberg formula in wave mechaincs'', Physical Review, 31, 333-343, 1928.]
* 1929: the determinantal expression for an antisymmetric wave function,[J.C. Slater, ''The theory of complex spectra'', Physical Review, 34, 1293-1323, 1929.]
* 1930: Slater type orbitals (STOs) and atomic shielding constants,[J.C. Slater, ''Atomic shielding constants'', Physical Review, 36, 57-64, 1930.]
* 1931: linear combination of atomic orbitals
A linear combination of atomic orbitals or LCAO is a quantum superposition of atomic orbitals and a technique for calculating molecular orbitals in quantum chemistry. In quantum mechanics, electron configurations of atoms are described as wavefu ...
,[J.C. Slater, ''Directed valence in polyatomic molecules'', Physical Review, 37, 481-489, 1931.] van der Waals force
In molecular physics, the van der Waals force is a distance-dependent interaction between atoms or molecules. Unlike ionic or covalent bonds, these attractions do not result from a chemical electronic bond; they are comparatively weak and th ...
s (with Jack Kirkwood
Jack Kirkwood (August 6, 1894 – August 2, 1964) was a Scottish-American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. He was known for playing the role of Charley Hackett in the American sitcom television series ''One Happy Family''.
Kirkwood was born in ...
, as a Chemistry Research Associate).
* 1932 to 1935: atomic orbitals
In atomic theory and quantum mechanics, an atomic orbital is a function describing the location and wave-like behavior of an electron in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in any spe ...
, metallic conduction, application of the Thomas–Fermi method to metals,
* 1936: ferromagnetism
Ferromagnetism is a property of certain materials (such as iron) which results in a large observed magnetic permeability, and in many cases a large magnetic coercivity allowing the material to form a permanent magnet. Ferromagnetic materials ...
, (with Erik Rudberg, later Chairman of the Nobel Prize committee for Physics) inelastic scattering In chemistry, nuclear physics, and particle physics, inelastic scattering is a fundamental scattering process in which the kinetic energy of an incident particle is not conserved (in contrast to elastic scattering). In an inelastic scattering proces ...
, and (with his Ph.D. student William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly ...
and close to his own Ph.D. topic), optical properties of alkali halides
* 1937 and 1938: augmented plane waves, superconductivity
Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...
, ferromagnetism
Ferromagnetism is a property of certain materials (such as iron) which results in a large observed magnetic permeability, and in many cases a large magnetic coercivity allowing the material to form a permanent magnet. Ferromagnetic materials ...
, electrodynamics
In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions of a ...
,
* 1939 he published "only" a book: the definitive ''Introduction to Chemical Physics'',
* 1940 the Grüneisen constant, and the Curie point
In physics and materials science, the Curie temperature (''T''C), or Curie point, is the temperature above which certain materials lose their permanent magnetic properties, which can (in most cases) be replaced by induced magnetism. The Cur ...
,
* 1941 phase transition
In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states of ...
analogous to ferromagnetism
Ferromagnetism is a property of certain materials (such as iron) which results in a large observed magnetic permeability, and in many cases a large magnetic coercivity allowing the material to form a permanent magnet. Ferromagnetic materials ...
in potassium dihydrogen phosphate
Monopotassium phosphate (MKP) (also, potassium dihydrogenphosphate, KDP, or monobasic potassium phosphate) is the inorganic compound with the formula KH2PO4. Together with dipotassium phosphate (K2HPO4.(H2O)x) it is often used as a fertilizer, ...
.
In his memoir, Morse wrote "In addition to other notable papers ... on ... Hartree's self-consistent field, the quantum mechanical derivation of the Rydberg constant
In spectroscopy, the Rydberg constant, symbol R_\infty for
heavy atoms or R_\text for hydrogen, named after the Swedish physicist Johannes Rydberg, is a physical constant relating to the electromagnetic spectra of an atom. The constant first aro ...
, and the best values of atomic shielding constants, he wrote a seminal paper on directing valency " (what became known, later, as linear combination of atomic orbitals
A linear combination of atomic orbitals or LCAO is a quantum superposition of atomic orbitals and a technique for calculating molecular orbitals in quantum chemistry. In quantum mechanics, electron configurations of atoms are described as wavefu ...
).
In further comments, John Van Vleck
John Hasbrouck Van Vleck (March 13, 1899 – October 27, 1980) was an American physicist and mathematician. He was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977, for his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electronic magnetism ...
pays particular attention to (1) the 1925 study of the spectra of hydrogen and ionized helium, that J.V.V. considers one sentence short of proposing electron spin (which would have led to sharing a Nobel prize), and (2) what J.V.V. regards as Slater's greatest paper, that introduced the mathematical object now called the Slater determinant
In quantum mechanics, a Slater determinant is an expression that describes the wave function of a multi-fermionic system. It satisfies anti-symmetry requirements, and consequently the Pauli principle, by changing sign upon exchange of two electro ...
. "These were some of the achievements (that led to his) election to the National Academy ... at ... thirty-one. He played a key role in lifting American theoretical physics to high international standing." Slater's doctoral students, during this time, included Nathan Rosen
Nathan Rosen (Hebrew: נתן רוזן; March 22, 1909 – December 18, 1995) was an American-Israeli physicist noted for his study on the structure of the hydrogen atom and his work with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky on entangled wave functio ...
Ph.D. in 1932 for a theoretical study of the hydrogen molecule, and William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly ...
Ph.D. 1936 for an energy band structure of sodium chloride, who later received a Nobel Prize for the discovery of the transistor.
Research during the war and the return to peace time activities
Slater, in his experimental and theoretical work on the magnetron
The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field while ...
(key elements paralleled his prior work with self-consistent fields for atoms) and on other topics at the Radiation Laboratory and at the Bell Laboratories did "more than any other person to provide the understanding requisite to progress in the microwave field", in the words of Mervin Kelley, then head of Bell Labs, quoted by Morse.
Slater' publications during the war and the post-war recovery include a book and papers on microwave transmission
Microwave transmission is the transmission of information by electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the microwave frequency range of 300MHz to 300GHz(1 m - 1 mm wavelength) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwave signals are normally limi ...
and microwave electronics,[J.C. Slater, ''Microwave transmission'', McGraw-Hill, New York, 1942; reissued Dover Publications, New York, 1959] linear accelerator
A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear beam ...
s, cryogenics
In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures.
The 13th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cr ...
, and, with Francis Bitter
Francis Bitter (July 22, 1902 – July 26, 1967) was an American physicist.
Bitter invented the Bitter plate used in resistive magnets (also called Bitter electromagnets). He also developed the water cooling method inherent to the design of Bi ...
and several other colleagues, superconductors
Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...
, These publications credit the many other scientists, mathematicians and engineers who participated. Among these,
George H. Vineyard received his Ph.D. with Slater in 1943 for a study of space charge in the cavity magnetron. Later, he became Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory and President of the American Physical Society. The work of the Radiation Laboratory paralleled research at the Telecommunications Research Establishment
The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organization for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) d ...
in England and the groups maintained a productive liaison.
The Solid State and Molecular Theory Group
Activities
In the words of Robert Nesbet: "Slater founded the SSMTG with the idea of bringing together a younger generation of students and PostDocs with a common interest in the electronic structure and properties of atoms, molecules and solids. This was in part to serve as a balance for electronic physics to survive the overwhelming growth of nuclear physics following the war" .[R.K. Nesbet, ''John C. Slater and the SSMTG in 1954-1956'', Molecular Physics, 108 (21-23) 2867-2869, 2010.]
George Koster soon completed his Ph.D., joined the faculty, and became the senior member of the group. He wrote "During the fifteen-year life of the group some sixty persons were members and thirty-four took doctoral degrees with theses connected with its work. In my report I have been unable to separate the work of Slater from that of the group as a whole. He was part of every aspect of the group's research efforts."[G. Koster, remarks, Slater Memorial Session, American Physical Society, Chicago, 7 February 1977.]
Nesbet continued "Every morning in SSMTG began with a coffee session, chaired by Professor Slater, with the junior members seated around a long table ... Every member of the group was expected to contribute a summary of his own work and ideas to the Quarterly Progress Report". The SMMTG QPRs had a wide distribution to university and industrial research libraries, and to individual laboratories. They were quoted widely for scientific and biographical content, in journal articles and government reports and libraries are starting to put them online.
To begin the work of the group, Slater "distilled his experience with the Hartree self-consistent field method" into (1) a simplification that became known as the Xα method, and (2) a relationship between a feature of this method and a magnetic property of the system. These required computations that were excessive for "pencil and paper" work. Slater was quick to avail the SSMTG of the electronic computers that were being developed. An early paper on augmented plane waves used an IBM card programmed calculator. The Whirlwind
A whirlwind is a weather phenomenon in which a vortex of wind (a vertically oriented rotating column of air) forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow (current) gradients. Whirlwinds occur all over the world and ...
was used heavily, then the IBM 704 in the MIT Computation Center The MIT Computation Center was organized in 1956 as a 10-year joint venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IBM to provide computing resources for New England universities. As part of the venture, IBM installed an IBM 704, wh ...
and then the IBM 709 in the Cooperative Computing Laboratory (see below).
Solid state work progressed more rapidly at first in the SSMTG, with contributions over the first few years by George Koster, John Wood, Arthur Freeman and Leonard Mattheis. Molecular and atomic calculations also flourished in the hands of Fernando J. Corbató
Fernando José "Corby" Corbató (July 1, 1926 – July 12, 2019) was a prominent American computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in the development of time-sharing operating systems.
Career
Corbató was born on July 1, 1926 in Oakland, Califo ...
, Lee Allen and Alvin Meckler. This initial work followed lines largely set by Slater. Michael Barnett came in 1958. He and John Wood were given faculty appointments. Robert Nesbet, Brian Sutcliffe, Malcolm Harrison and Levente Szasz brought in a variety of further approaches to molecular and atomic problems. Jens Dahl, Alfred Switendick, Jules Moskowitz, Donald Merrifield
Donald Paul Merrifield, S.J., Ph.D. (November 14, 1928 – February 25, 2010) was an American Jesuit who served as the 11th president of Loyola University of Los Angeles. He became the first president of Loyola Marymount University president upo ...
and Russell Pitzer did further work on molecules, and Fred Quelle on solids.
Slater rarely included his name on the papers of SSMTG members who worked with him. Major pieces of work which he did coauthor dealt with applications of (1) group theory in band structure calculations and (2) equivalent features of linear combination of atomic orbital (LCAO), tight binding
In solid-state physics, the tight-binding model (or TB model) is an approach to the calculation of electronic band structure using an approximate set of wave functions based upon superposition of wave functions for isolated atoms located at each ...
and Bloch electron
In condensed matter physics, Bloch's theorem states that solutions to the Schrödinger equation in a periodic potential take the form of a plane wave modulated by a periodic function. The theorem is named after the physicist Felix Bloch, who d ...
approximations, to interpolate results for the energy levels of solids, obtained by more accurate methods,
People
A partial list of members of the SSMTG (Ph.D. students, post-doctoral members, research staff and faculty, in some cases successively, labeled †, ‡, ৳, ¶), together with references that report their SSMTG and later activities, follows.
* Leland C. Allen †‡, ''ab initio'' molecular calculations, electronegativity
Electronegativity, symbolized as , is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons (or electron density) when forming a chemical bond. An atom's electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the d ...
, Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, Princeton University (2011).
*Michael P Barnett
Michael Peter Barnett (24 March 1929 – 13 March 2012) was a British theoretical chemist and computer scientist. He developed mathematical and computer techniques for Quantum chemistry, quantum chemical problems, and some of the earliest softwar ...
৳¶, molecular integrals, software, phototypesetting
Phototypesetting is a method of setting type. It uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper.
It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing (digital typesetting).
Th ...
, cognition, later in industry, Columbia U. and CUNY.
* Louis Burnelle‡, molecular calculations, later Professor of Chemistry, New York University.
* Earl Callen †
*Fernando J. Corbató
Fernando José "Corby" Corbató (July 1, 1926 – July 12, 2019) was a prominent American computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in the development of time-sharing operating systems.
Career
Corbató was born on July 1, 1926 in Oakland, Califo ...
†, began the molecular calculations in the SSMTG; later a pioneer of time-sharing
In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1
Its emergence a ...
and recipient of the Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
.
*George Coulouris
George Alexander Coulouris (1 October 1903 – 25 April 1989) was an English film and stage actor.
Early life
Coulouris was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, the son of Abigail (née Redfern) anNicholas Coulouris a merchant of Greek o ...
৳, worked with MPB, later Professor of Computer Science at Queen Mary College
Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and previously Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public university, public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University of ...
of the University of London.
* Imre Csizmadia ‡, molecular calculations (LiH), later Professor of Chemistry, U. Toronto, ''ab initio'' calculations, drug design.
* Jens Dahl ‡, molecular calculations, later Professor of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark, wrote quantum chemistry text.
* Donald E. Ellis ৳†, molecular calculations, later Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University, "real" materials.
* Arthur Freeman †‡, orthogonalized plane wave calculations, later Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University
* Robert P. Futrelle ৳, programming methods, later Professor of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University.
*Leon Gunther †‡ lattice vibrations in alkali halides, later Professor of Physics at Tufts University, focus on condensed matter theory in many areas, including superconductivity and seminal papers on nanoscopic physics & quantum tunneling of magnetization.
* Malcolm Harrison ‡, (died 2007) co-developer of POLYATOM, later Professor of Computer Science, New York University.
* Frank Herman, band structure calculations, went into RCA then IBM Research Laboratories, wrote and edited major surveys.
* David Howarth ‡, solid state, later Professor of Computer Science, Imperial College
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
, University of London.
* John Iliffe ৳, computer scientist.
* San-Ichiro Ishigura ‡, later Professor, Ochinamizu University
* Arnold Karo ‡, electronic structure of small molecules, later at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
* C.W. Kern ‡, molecular calculations, later Professor of Chemistry, Ohio State U., published extensively.
* Ryoichi Kikuchi ‡
* Walter H. Kleiner, solid state physics, continued at Lincoln Laboratory.
* George F. Koster †¶, became Chairman of the Physics Graduate Committee at MIT and wrote two books on solid state physics.
* Leonard F. Mattheiss †, augmented plane wave calculations, later at Bell Labs, published about 100 papers.
*Roy McWeeny
Roy McWeeny (19 May 1924 – 29 April 2021) was a British academic physicist and chemist.
McWeeny was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in May 1924. His first degree was in physics from the University of Leeds. He then obtained a D.Phil. in mathematic ...
‡, valence theory, later held chairs at several British Universities and, since 1982, at the University of Pisa
The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe.
History
The Origins
The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...
, Italy.
* Alvin Meckler, first major molecular calculation on Whirlwind (oxygen), later National Security Agency,
*Donald Merrifield
Donald Paul Merrifield, S.J., Ph.D. (November 14, 1928 – February 25, 2010) was an American Jesuit who served as the 11th president of Loyola University of Los Angeles. He became the first president of Loyola Marymount University president upo ...
†, molecular calculations (methane), later President of Loyola University, Los Angeles.
* Jules Moskowitz ‡, molecular calculations (benzene), later Chairman, Department of Chemistry, NYU, published 100 papers.
* Robert K. Nesbet ‡, molecular calculations, later at IBM Almaden Research Laboratories, published over 200 papers.
* Robert H. Parmenter, later Professor of Physics, U. Arizona, crystal properties and superconductivity.
*Russell M. Pitzer
Russell Mosher Pitzer (born May 10, 1938) is an American theoretical chemist and educator.
He was born in Berkeley, California and attended public schools in this and the Washington, D.C. area. He received his B.S. in chemistry in 1959 from the ...
‡, molecular calculations (ethane), later Chairman of Chemistry Department, Ohio State U, over 100 papers.
* George W. Pratt, Jr. †‡later Professor of Electrical Engineering and CMSE, MIT, solid state electronics.
* F.W. Quelle, Jr. augmented plane waves, later laser optics.
* Melvin M. Saffren †
*Robert Schrieffer
John Robert Schrieffer (; May 31, 1931 – July 27, 2019) was an American physicist who, with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper, was a recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the BCS theory, the first successful quantum theo ...
wrote Bachelor's thesis on multiplets in heavy atoms, later shared Nobel Prize for BCS theory
BCS theory or Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory (named after John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer) is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory describes sup ...
of superconductivity.
* Edward Schultz
* Harold Schweinler
* Hermann Statz ‡, ferromagnetism, later director of research at Raytheon and recipient of 2004 IEEE Microwave Pioneer Award,
* Levente Szasz, atomic structure, became Professor of Physics at Fordham University, published two books,
* Brian T. Sutcliffe ‡, co-developer of POLYATOM, later Professor of Chemistry, University of York.
* Richard E. Watson ‡៛, electronic properties of metal atoms, later at Brookhaven, published over 200 papers.
* E.B. White †
* John Wood †¶, augmented plane waves using Hartree–Fock methods, at Los Alamos National Laboratory (died 1986), published extensively.
Distinguished visitors included Frank Boys
Frank Cecil Boys (21 June 1918 − 27 March 2003) was an English first-class cricketer and Royal Navy officer.
Life, naval career and first-class cricket
Boys was born at Kensington and was educated at Dartmouth Naval College, graduating into t ...
, Alex Dalgarno
Alexander Dalgarno Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 January 1928 – 9 April 2015) was a UK, British physicist who was a Phillips Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University.
Biography
Alexander Dalgarno was born in London in 1928, and spen ...
, Ugo Fano
Ugo Fano (July 28, 1912 – February 13, 2001) was an Italian American physicist, notable for contributions to theoretical physics.
Biography
Ugo Fano was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Turin, Italy. His father was Gino Fano, a professo ...
, Anders Fröman, Inga Fischer-Hjalmars, Douglas Hartree
Douglas Rayner Hartree (27 March 1897 – 12 February 1958) was an English mathematician and physicist most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to the Hartree–Fock equations of atomic physics and the c ...
, Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent series ...
, Per-Olov Löwdin
Per-Olov Löwdin (October 28, 1916 – October 6, 2000) was a Swedish physicist, professor at the University of Uppsala from 1960 to 1983, and in parallel at the University of Florida until 1993.
A former graduate student under Ivar Waller, Löwd ...
, Chaim Pekeris, Ivar Waller
Ivar Waller (11 June 1898 – 12 April 1991) was a Swedish professor of theoretical physics at Uppsala University. He developed the theory of X-ray scattering by lattice vibrations of a crystal, building upon the prior work of Peter Debye. The De ...
and Peter Wohlfarth.
Slater's further activities at MIT during this time
In the 1962 President's Report, Jay Stratton wrote (on p. 17) "A faculty committee under the chairmanship of Professor John C. Slater has taken primary responsibility for planning the facilities in the new Center for Materials. These include a new Cooperative Computing Laboratory completed this year and equipped with an I.B.M. 709 Computer".
The name ''Center for Materials Science and Engineering'' (CMSE) was adopted soon afterward. It embodied the ethos of interdepartmental research and teaching that Slater had espoused throughout his career. The first Director was R.A. Smith, previously Head of the Physics Division of the Royal Radar Establishment
The Royal Radar Establishment was a research centre in Malvern, Worcestershire in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1953 as the Radar Research Establishment by the merger of the Air Ministry's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) a ...
in England. He, Slater and Charles Townes
Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated wi ...
, the Provost, had been in close acquaintance since the early years of World War II, working on overlapping topics.
The Center was set up, in accordance with Slater's plans. It "supported research and teaching in Metallurgy and Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering", and preserved MIT as a focus for work in solid state physics. By 1967, two years after Slater left, the MIT Physics Department "had a very, very small commitment to condensed matter physics" because it was so "heavily into high energy physics." But in the same year, the CMSE staff included 55 professors and 179 graduate students. The Center continues to flourish in the 21st century.
The Cooperative Computing Laboratory (CCL) was used, in its first year by some 400 faculty, students and staff. These included (1) members of the SSMTG and the CCL running quantum mechanical calculations and non-numeric applications[M. P. Barnett and R. P. Futrelle, ''Syntactic analysis by digital computer'', Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 5, 515-526, 1962; M. P. Barnett, ''Computer Typesetting, Experiments and Prospects'', MIT Press, 1965, and work cited therein; M. P. Barnett, ''Some comments suggested by a consideration of computers'', in ''Macromolecular specificity and biological memory'', ed. F. O. Schmidt, 24-27, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1962.] directed by Slater, Koster, Wood and Barnett, (2) the computer-aided design team of Ross Ross or ROSS may refer to:
People
* Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan
* Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning
* Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland
Places
* RoSS, the Republic of Sou ...
, Coons and Mann, (3) members of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, (4) Charney and Phillips in theoretical meteorology, and (5) Simpson and Madden in geophysics (from 1964 President's report, p. 336-337).
Personal life and death
In 1926, he had married Helen Frankenfeld. Their three children (Louise Chapin, John Frederick, and Clarke Rothwell) all followed academic careers. Slater was divorced and in 1954 he married Rose Mooney, a physicist and crystallographer, who moved to Florida with him in 1965.
At the University of Florida (Gainesville) where the retirement age was 70, Slater was able to enjoy another five years of active research and publication as a Research Professor in the Quantum Theory Project (QTP). In 1975, in his scientific autobiography, he wrote: ""The Florida Physics Department was a congenial one, with main emphasis on solid state physics, statistical physics and related fields. It reminded me of the MIT department in the days when I had been department head there. It was a far cry from the MIT Physics Department which I was leaving; by then it had been literally captured by the nuclear theorists."[ Slater published to the end of his life: his final journal paper, published with John Connolly in 1976, was on a novel approach to molecular orbital theory.
Prof. Slater was also Committee Member for Dr. Ravi Sharma's Ph.D.(1966, U of Florida Gainesville) and for many such committees. He and Rose said to Ravi that he had lost his books and research papers when the truck carrying his belongings overturned while moving from MIT to Gainesville.
Slater died in ]Sanibel Island, Florida
Sanibel is an island and city in Lee County, Florida, United States. The population was 6,382 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The island, also known as Sanibel Island, constitute ...
in 1976.
As an educator and advisor
Slater's concern for the well being of others is well illustrated by the following dialog that Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...
relates. It took place at the end of his undergraduate days at MIT, when he wanted to stay on to do a Ph.D. "When I went to Professor Slater and told him of my intentions he said: 'We will not have you here'. I said 'What?' Slater said 'Why do you think you should go to graduate school at MIT?' 'Because it is the best school for science in the country' ... 'That is why you should go to some other school. You should find out how the rest of the world is.' So I went to Princeton. ... Slater was right. And I often advise my students the same way. Learn what the rest of the world is like. The variety is worthwhile."
Summary
From the memoir by Philip Morse: "He contributed significantly to the start of the quantum revolution in physics; he was one of the very few American-trained physicists to do so. He was exceptional in that he persisted in exploring atomic, molecular and solid state physics, while many of his peers were coerced by war, or tempted by novelty, to divert to nuclear mysteries. Not least, his texts and his lectures contributed materially to the rise of the illustrious American generation of physicists of the 1940s and 1950s."[
The new generation that Slater launched from the SSMTG and the QTP took knowledge and skills into departments of Physics and Chemistry and Computer Science, into industrial and government laboratories and academe, into research and administration. They have continued and evolved his methodologies, applying them to an increasing variety of topics from atomic energy levels to drug design, and to a host of solids and their properties. Slater imparted knowledge and advice, and he recognized new trends, provided financial support from his grants, and motivational support by sharing the enthusiasms of the protagonists.
In a slight paraphrase of a recent and forward looking comment of John Connolly, it can be said that the contributions of John C. Slater and his students in the SSMTG and the Quantum Theory Project laid the foundations of ]density functional theory
Density-functional theory (DFT) is a computational quantum mechanical modelling method used in physics, chemistry and materials science to investigate the electronic structure (or nuclear structure) (principally the ground state) of many-body ...
which has become one of the premier approximations in quantum theory today.
Slater's papers were bequeathed to the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
by his widow, Rose Mooney Slater, in 1980 and 1982. In August 2003, Alfred Switendick donated a collection of ''Quarterly Reports of the MIT Solid State and Molecular Theory Group (SSMTG)'', dating from 1951 to 1965. These are available in several major research libraries.
Awards and honors
* Irving Langmuir Award The Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics is awarded annually, in even years by the American Chemical Society and in odd years by the American Physical Society. The award is meant to recognize and encourage outstanding interdisciplinary resear ...
(1967)
* Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...
(1969)
* National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...
(1970)
Books
*
*
* [From the Preface (p. v): "The present book is the second of several volumes which are intended to replace the ''Introduction to Theoretical Physics'' written by the same authors in 1933. By separating the material on mechanics, on electromagnetism, and on the quantum theory, we believe that it is possible to give a somewhat better rounded treatment of each of these fields."]
* Slater, J. C. (1950). ''Microwave Electronics.'' New York: Van Nostrand.
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References
External links
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Biographical Memoir
by Philip M. Morse
Philip McCord Morse (August 6, 19035 September 1985), was an American physicist, administrator and pioneer of operations research (OR) in World War II. He is considered to be the father of operations research in the U.S.
Biography
Morse graduat ...
, includes a photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slater, John C.
1900 births
1976 deaths
20th-century American physicists
University of Florida faculty
Members of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science
National Medal of Science laureates
American physical chemists
Theoretical chemists
University of Rochester alumni
Harvard University alumni
Scientists at Bell Labs
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences