Mark Samuel Nelkin (born 12 May 1931) is a theoretical physicist at the

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. Under the direction of Professor

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize ...

, he received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell in 1955. From 1955 to 1962 he worked in the nuclear industry for General Electric in Schenectady and General Atomic in San Diego. In 1962 he became a member of the Cornell faculty.Biography at Cornell Engineering website
/ref> He was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship 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 ...

in 1968. He retired from Cornell University as professor emeritus in 1993. After retirement he moved to New York City and remained active in refereeing articles for ''Physical Review Letters'', ''Physical Review E'', ''The Physics of Fluids'', and the ''Journal of Fluid Mechanics''. Nelkin became a 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 ...

in 1984, having been nominated by their Division of

Fluid Dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) an ...

, for contributions to the advancement of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

by strong

theoretical A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...

contributions in four areas beginning with the physics of

thermal neutrons The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium with ...

and its applications to

nuclear reactors A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

kinetic theory Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to: * Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion * Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to its motion Art and ente ...

of fluctuations in fluids, turbulence, and

1/f noise Pink noise or noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density (power per frequency interval) is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. In pink noise, each octave interval (halving or ...

. Nelkin was married to American sociologist of science

Dorothy Nelkin Dorothy Wolfers Nelkin ( – ) was an American sociologist of science most noted for her work researching and chronicling interplay between science, technology and the general public. Her work often highlighted the ramifications of unchecked scie ...

until her death in 2003.

Publications

* ''Does Kolmogorov mean field theory become exact for turbulence above some critical dimension?''

References

External links

Mark Nelkin at ResearchGate
Living people 1931 births Cornell University alumni 21st-century American physicists Theoretical physicists Cornell University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society {{US-physicist-stub