John C. Wheatley (17 February 1927, Tucson – 10 May 1986,

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) was an American experimental physicist who worked on quantum fluids at low and very low temperatures.

Biography

Wheatley received his B.S. in electrical engineering in 1947 from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

in Boulder and his Ph.D. in physics under David Halliday in 1952 from the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

. From 1952 to 1966 he was an instructor and then a professor at the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the Flagship#Colleges and universities in ...

. In 1966 he became a full professor in the physics department of the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

. From 1981 to 1985 he did research at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

as a permanent staff member of the Laboratory. From 1985 he was a professor at the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

.Biography from AIP
/ref> He died of a heart attack while riding a bicycle. His fame stems from his research on liquid helium-3, a Fermi liquid. He collaborated with theorists such as John Bardeen,

Gordon Baym Gordon Alan Baym (born July 1, 1935) is an American theoretical physicist. Biography Born in New York City, he graduated from the Brooklyn Technical High School, and received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 1956. He earned hi ...

, and Christopher Pethick. In the academic years 1954/55 and 1980/81 he was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1961. He was a

Sloan Fellow The Sloan Fellows program is the world's first mid-career and senior career master's degree in general management and leadership. It was initially supported by a grant from Alfred P. Sloan, the late CEO of General Motors, to his alma mater, MI ...

. In 1965/66 he was a guest scientist at the Center for Advanced Study of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He was also a guest scientist for 18 months in 1962/63 at Bariloche Atomic Centre in Argentina, where he helped to establish a low temperature laboratory. At the time of his death he had been nominated for UCLA's first Presidential Chair in Physics. In 1975 Wheatley won the

Fritz London Memorial Prize The Fritz London Memorial Prize was created to recognize scientists who made outstanding contributions to the advances of the field of Low Temperature Physics. It is traditionally awarded in the first session of the International Conference on Lo ...

and in 1966 the Simon Memorial Prize. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1975 and he was also a member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences. In 1991 the John Wheatley Award was established in his honor. He had a wife and two sons.

SHE Corporation

In 1970 Wheatley with

Olli Lounasmaa Olli Viktor Lounasmaa (20 August 1930, Turku – 27 December 2002, Goa, India) was a Finnish academician, experimental physicist and neuroscientist. He was known for his research in low temperature physics, especially for experimental proof of th ...

and other colleagues founded the SHE (for Superconducting Helium Electronics) Corporation in San Diego. SHE was the first worldwide corporation specializing in superconducting electronics. The name of the corporation was changed to Biomagnetic Technologies in 1985. In December 1999, Biomagnetic Technologies merged with the Finnish company Neuromag Oy to form the new corporation 4-D Neuroimaging. The Neuromag part of the company was sold to Elekta AB of Sweden in 2003; 4-D Neuroimaging filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

References

External links

''Liquid He³, liquid mixtures of liquid He³ and liquid He⁴, and dilution refrigeration'' by John C. Wheatley, 1970Robert E. Ecke, Gregory W. Swift, and Oscar E. Vilches, "John C. Wheatley", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2013)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheatley, John 1927 births 1986 deaths 20th-century American physicists Experimental physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Quantum physicists University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of California, San Diego faculty University of Colorado alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of Pittsburgh alumni