Leon N Cooper (born February 28, 1930) is an American physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
who, with
John Bardeen
John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
and
John 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 ...
, developed the
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
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 ...
. His name is also associated with the
Cooper pair
In condensed matter physics, a Cooper pair or BCS pair (Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer pair) is a pair of electrons (or other fermions) bound together at low temperatures in a certain manner first described in 1956 by American physicist Leon Cooper ...
and co-developer of the
BCM theory
BCM theory, BCM synaptic modification, or the BCM rule, named for Elie Bienenstock, Leon Cooper, and Paul Munro, is a physical theory of learning in the visual cortex developed in 1981.
The BCM model proposes a sliding threshold for long-term pote ...
of
synaptic plasticity
In neuroscience, synaptic plasticity is the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time, in response to increases or decreases in their activity. Since memories are postulated to be represented by vastly interconnected neural circuit ...
.
Biography and career
Cooper graduated from the
Bronx High School of Science
The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Spec ...
in 1947 and received a
BA in 1951,
MA in 1953,
and
PhD in 1954 from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
He spent a year at the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
and taught at the
University of Illinois
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 institution of the University ...
and
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 ...
before coming to
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
in 1958.
He has been the
Thomas J. Watson Sr.
Thomas John Watson Sr. (February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956) was an American businessman who served as the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's managemen ...
Professor of Science at Brown since 1974, and Director of the
Institute for Brain and Neural Systems
An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body.
In some countries, institutes can ...
which he founded in 1973.
Along with colleague
Charles Elbaum
Charles Elbaum (May 15, 1926 – March 4, 2018) was an American physicist.
Charles Elbaum was born in Lublin, Poland to parents Chil and Hannah Elbaum. After World War II, he moved to Belgium and Paris before earning a master's and doctorate from ...
, he founded the tech company ''Nestor'', dedicated to finding commercial applications for
artificial neural network
Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains.
An ANN is based on a collection of connected unit ...
s. Nestor, along with Intel, developed the
Ni1000
The Ni1000 is an artificial neural network chip developed by Nestor Corporation and Intel. It is Intel's second-generation neural network chip but first all digital. The chip is aimed at image analysis applications, contains more than 3 million tra ...
neural network computer chip in 1994.
![Leon Cooper with wife 1972](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Leon_Cooper_with_wife_1972.jpg)
In 1969 Cooper married Kay Allard. They have two children.
He has carried out research at various institutions including the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
) in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, Switzerland.
The character
Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Lee Cooper, Ph.D., Sc.D., is a fictional character in the CBS television series ''The Big Bang Theory'' and its spinoff series ''Young Sheldon'', portrayed by actors Jim Parsons and Iain Armitage respectively (with Parsons as the latter ...
, featured in the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
comedy ''
The Big Bang Theory
''The Big Bang Theory'' is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on CBS ...
'', is named in part after Leon Cooper.
Memberships and honors
*Fellow of the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
*Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
*Member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
*Member of 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 ...
*Member of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
*Associate member of the
Neuroscience Research Program The Neuroscience Research Program (NRP) is an inter-university and international organisation founded during 1962 by Francis O. Schmitt, Francis Otto Schmitt and others, which marked a key moment in the foundation of neuroscience as a discipline.
A ...
*Research Fellow of the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (1959–1966)
*Fellow of the
Guggenheim Institute (1965–66)
*Nobel Prize Recipient for Physics (1972)
*Co-winner (with Dr. Schrieffer) of the
Comstock Prize in Physics
The Comstock Prize in Physics is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for recent innovative discovery or investigation in electricity, magnetism, or radiant energy, broadly interpreted."
Honorees must be residents of North America. ...
of the National Academy of Sciences (1968)
*Received the Award of Excellence, Graduate Faculties Alumni of
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
*Received the
Descartes Medal, Academie de Paris, Université René Descartes.
*Received the
John Jay Award of Columbia College (1985)
*Recipient of seven honorary doctorates
Publications
Cooper is the author o
Science and Human Experience– a collection of essays, including previously unpublished material, on issues such as consciousness and the structure of space.
(Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Cooper is the author of an unconventional liberal-arts physics textbook, originally ''An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics'' (Harper and Row, 1968)
and still in print in a somewhat condensed form as ''Physics: Structure and Meaning'' (Lebanon: New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1992).
*Cooper, L. N. & J. Rainwater
"Theory of Multiple Coulomb Scattering from Extended Nuclei" Nevis Cyclotron Laboratories at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
,
Office of Naval Research
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...
(ONR),
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
(through predecessor agency the
Atomic Energy Commission), (August 1954).
*
*
*
*Cooper, L. N., Lee, H. J., Schwartz, B. B. & W. Silvert
"Theory of the Knight Shift and Flux Quantization in Superconductors" Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
,
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
(through predecessor agency the
Atomic Energy Commission), (May 1962).
*Cooper, L. N. & Feldman, D
"BCS: 50 years" World Scientific Publishing Co., (November 2010).
References
External links
* including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1972 ''Microscopic Quantum Interference Effects in the Theory of Superconductivity''
Brown University researcher profile* ''
Critical Review'
evaluationsof Professor Cooper
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Leon N
1930 births
Living people
Nobel laureates in Physics
American Nobel laureates
21st-century American physicists
Jewish American physicists
Brown University faculty
People associated with CERN
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Jewish neuroscientists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Superconductivity
The Bronx High School of Science alumni
Scientists from New York (state)
Scientists from the Bronx