Peter Pitirimovich Sorokin ( rus, Пётр Питиримович Сорокин, 10 July 1931 – 24 September 2015) was an American Russian physicist and co-inventor of the dye laser. He was born in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, receiving a BA degree in 1952 and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

Applied Physics Applied physics is the application of physics to solve scientific or engineering problems. It is usually considered to be a bridge or a connection between physics and engineering. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination ...

in 1958; his PhD thesis adviser was

Nicolaas Bloembergen Nicolaas Bloembergen (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) was a Dutch-American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics for laser spectroscopy. During his career, he was a p ...

. Peter Sorokin was a son of a prominent Russian sociologist

Pitirim Sorokin Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (; russian: Питири́м Алекса́ндрович Соро́кин; – 10 February 1968) was a Russian American sociologist and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory. Background ...

and his wife Microbiologist Dr. Elena Baratynskaya, who belonged to

Russian nobility The Russian nobility (russian: дворянство ''dvoryanstvo'') originated in the 14th century. In 1914 it consisted of approximately 1,900,000 members (about 1.1% of the population) in the Russian Empire. Up until the February Revolution ...

(see: ). Sorokin joined IBM in 1958. Sorokin and his colleague J. R. Lankard, at IBM Research Laboratories, used a

ruby laser A ruby laser is a solid-state laser that uses a synthetic ruby crystal as its gain medium. The first working laser was a ruby laser made by Theodore H. "Ted" Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories on May 16, 1960. Ruby lasers produce pulses of c ...

to excite a near infrared laser dye. Their report was quickly followed by that of F. P. Schäfer. In 1974 Sorokin received the

Albert A. Michelson Medal The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and wikt:statesman, statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin ...

from the Franklin Institute. In 1983 Sorokin was awarded 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. ...

from 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 ...

and in 1984 the Harvey Prize from Israel's Technion. In 1991 he received the first

Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science The Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science is a prize that has been awarded annually by the American Physical Society since 1991. The recipient is chosen for "''outstanding contributions to basic research which uses lasers to advance our knowled ...

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 ...

. Sorokin is an IBM Fellow since 1968. Look in chapte
Contributors’ CVs and Addresses
page 825. He was also a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. Toward the end of his career he became interested in astronomy. Sorokin died at the age of 84 on 24 September 2015 from injuries incurred in a fall in August.

References

1931 births 2015 deaths American physicists Laser researchers IBM Fellows Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American people of Russian descent American people of Komi descent Fellows of the Optical Society Fellows of the American Physical Society Harvard University alumni {{US-physicist-stub