Lillian Hartman Hoddeson (born 20 December 1940, in New York City) is an American historian of science, specializing in the history of physics and technology during the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Education and career

Hoddeson received in 1957 a high school diploma from the Bronx High School of Science, in 1961 a bachelor's degree in physics from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, and in 1966 a Ph.D. in physics 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 ...

with a dissertation on solid-state physics. She was an assistant professor of physics from 1967 to 1970 at Barnard College and from 1971 to 1976 at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

. In 1974–1975 she was a visiting fellow at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

and took

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term '' paradigm ...

's "History of Quantum Mechanics" graduate course. From 1977 to 1992 she held various academic positions at the

University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana 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 ...

, before becoming there an associate professor from 1993 to 2000 and a full professor from 2000 until her retirement. Since 1978 she has held the position of

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...

's historian. Hoddeson is the co-author or editor of several books and has published more than 50 articles in referred journals. Her publications include a biography of

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 ...

, history of the development of the transistor, history of Fermilab, technical history of the beginning of

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, ...

, and history of the development of the atomic bomb in 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 ...

. She co-authored three important books on the history of particle physics and a 2015 book on the Superconducting Super Collider. In 2012 she received the

Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics The Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics is an award given each year since 2005 jointly by the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics for "''outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics''". The prize ...

from 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 ...

. She 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 ar ...

for the academic year 2000–2001 and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. She was married to physicist

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 ...

from 1981 to 1992.

Selected publications

* as editor with Jürgen Teichmann,

Spencer Weart Spencer R. Weart (born 1942) is the former director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) from 1971 until his retirement in 2009. Life Originally trained as a physicist, he is now a historian of scienc ...

, Ernest Braun
''Out of the Crystal Maze: Chapters from the history of solid-state physics''
Oxford University Press 1992 (contribution by Hoddeson, Michael Eckert, Gordon Baym ''The development of quantum mechanical electron theory of metals 1926–1933'' and contribution from Hoddeson, Helmut Schubert, Steve J. Heims, Baym ''Collective Phenomena'') * with Michael Riordan: Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, Norton 1997 (history of the

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...

and

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

, and biographical information on many of those involved) * with Vicki Daitch
''True Genius: The life and science of John Bardeen''
National Academy of Science Press 2002 * with

Adrienne Kolb Adrienne W. Kolb is an American historian of science who worked for many years as the archivist and historian at Fermilab. Education and career Kolb studied history at the University of New Orleans, graduating in 1972. She came to Fermilab as an ...

Catherine Westfall Catherine Lee Westfall is an American historian of science known for her work documenting the history of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories. Education and career Westfall completed a Ph.D. at Michigan State University in ...

''Fermilab: physics, the frontier and the rise of megascience''
University of Chicago Press 2008 * as editor with Laurie Brown
''The birth of particle physics''
Cambridge University Press 1983 * as editor with Laurie Brown,

Max Dresden Max Dresden (April 23, 1918, Amsterdam – October 29, 1997, Palo Alto) was a Dutch-American theoretical physicist and historian of physics. He is known for his research in "statistical mechanics, superconductivity, quantum field theory, and eleme ...

, Michael Riorda
''The rise of the Standard Model: Particle physics in the 1960s and 1970s''
Cambridge University Press 1997 (with an introduction by Brown, Riordan and Hoddeson on ''The rise of the standard model 1964–1979'', pp. 3–35) * with Laurie Brown, Max Dresden

Cambridge University Press 1989 * with Paul W. Henriksen, Roger A. Meade, Catherine Westfall

Cambridge University Press 1993 (with contributions by

and others) * as editor
''No boundaries: University of Illinois vignettes''
University of Illinois Press 2004 (with a preface by

Richard Herman Richard H. Herman is a former mathematician who had served as the Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2005-2009. He previously served there as Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs since 1998. As provost ...

) * with Michael Riordan, Adrienne W. Kolb
''Tunnel visions: the rise and fall of the superconducting super collider''
University of Chicago Press 2015

References

External links

Stanford Ovshinsky's Life Discussed by Lillian Hoddeson, 20 May 2015, YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoddeson, Lillian Barnard College alumni The Bronx High School of Science alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society 1940 births Living people Writers from New York City American women historians 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians Historians of physics Barnard College faculty Historians from New York (state) Rutgers University faculty Scientists from New York City