Lawrence Christian Biedenharn, Jr. (18 November 1922,

Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vic ...

– 12 February 1996,

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

) was an American theoretical

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

and

mathematical physicist Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developmen ...

, a leading expert on applications of Lie group theory to physics. Biedenharn studied at

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 ...

with an interruption in World War II from 1942 to 1946 as a

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...

in the Signal Corps in the Pacific theater, where in 1946 he was stationed in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

for a year as a radio officer. He received his bachelor's degree

in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in absen ...

from MIT. After World War II, he returned to MIT where he received his PhD in physics under

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 ...

in 1950. As an MIT graduate student he shared an office with J. David Jackson, then a graduate student, and John Blatt, then a post-doc. Biedenharn was employed at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...

, became an assistant professor at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, and then an associate professor at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

. From 1961 he was a professor at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, where he became in 1987 "James B. Duke Professor", and then retired in 1992 as professor emeritus. He remained active in teaching and research as an adjunct professor at the

University of Texas, Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. In 1996 he died from kidney cancer. Biedenharn is known for his contributions to the

quantum theory Quantum theory may refer to: Science *Quantum mechanics, a major field of physics *Old quantum theory, predating modern quantum mechanics * Quantum field theory, an area of quantum mechanics that includes: ** Quantum electrodynamics ** Quantum ch ...

angular momentum In physics, angular momentum (rarely, moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a conserved quantity—the total angular momentum of a closed syst ...

, especially the theory of

nuclear reactions In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation o ...

and

Coulomb excitation Coulomb excitation is a technique in experimental nuclear physics to probe the electromagnetic aspect of nuclear structure. In coulomb excitation, a nucleus is excited by an inelastic collision with another nucleus through the electromagnetic intera ...

s (excitations of atoms by the scattering of charged particles and the Coulomb interaction with the nucleus). In the later part of his career, he worked on representation of

quantum group In mathematics and theoretical physics, the term quantum group denotes one of a few different kinds of noncommutative algebras with additional structure. These include Drinfeld–Jimbo type quantum groups (which are quasitriangular Hopf algebras) ...

s. From 1985 to 1993 he was the chief editor of the ''

Journal of Mathematical Physics The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' is a peer-reviewed journal published monthly by the American Institute of Physics devoted to the publication of papers in mathematical physics. The journal was first published bimonthly beginning in Januar ...

''. For many years Hendrik van Dam was his co-editor. In 1958 Biedenharn was a

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and 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 ar ...

. He received the Jesse W. Beams Award in 1979 and twice received (1976 and 1987) the

Humboldt Prize The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...

. In 1950 he married Sarah Willingham, who became a lawyer; they had a son and a daughter.

Selected works

*with John Blatt: *with J. Blatt, M. E. Rose: *with Morris Edgar Rose: *with Pieter Johannes Brussaard: ''Coulomb Excitations'', Oxford University Press 1965 (The review has a misspelling of Brussaard's surname.) *with J. D. Louck: ''Angular Momentum in Quantum Physics'', Addison-Wesley 1981 *with J. D. Louck: ''Racah-Wigner Algebra in Quantum Theory'', Addison-Wesley 1981 *with J. D. Louck: *with Max Lohe: ''Quantum Group Symmetry and q-Tensor Algebras'', World Scientific 1995
1999 reprint
*as editor with Hendrik van Dam: ''Quantum Theory of Angular Momentum: A Collection of Reprints and Original Papers'', Academic Press 1965

References

External links

Biography at Duke University websiteArchive Spotlight: The Lawrence Biedenharn Papers , Mathematical Association of Americapublications of biedenharn,l - INSPIRE-HEP
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biedenharn, Lawrence 1922 births 1996 deaths American nuclear physicists Duke University faculty Mathematical physicists People from Vicksburg, Mississippi 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American physicists Mathematicians from Mississippi MIT Department of Physics alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army officers