Robert Vivian Pound (May 16, 1919 – April 12, 2010) was a Canadian-American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

who helped discover

nuclear magnetic resonance Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...

(NMR) and who devised the famous

Pound–Rebka experiment The Pound–Rebka experiment was an experiment in which gamma rays were emitted from the top of a tower and measured by a receiver at the bottom of the tower. The purpose of the experiment was to test Albert Einstein's theory of general relativit ...

supporting general relativity. He became a tenured professor of physics at Harvard without ever having received a graduate degree. Pound was born in

Ridgeway, Ontario Ridgeway is a small, unincorporated village in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada. The community is within the Niagara Regional Municipality, Ontario, Niagara Regional Municipality. It used to be the seat of government for Bertie Township within Welland ...

. The discovery of NMR won the

Nobel Prize in physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 1952, though, due to the limitation on the number of recipients and the simultaneous achievements of

Felix Bloch Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of ne ...

's group, only two recipients were designated. In his address to recipient Ed Purcell, Professor Hulthén nevertheless celebrated the "very interesting experiment you performed together with Dr. Pound", making Pound one of only two collaborators explicitly named in the speech. Pound received the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

in 1990 for his lifetime contributions to the field of physics. Pound was the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics emeritus at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He was a member of the class of 1941 at the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

. Pound's name is also attached to the Pound–Drever–Hall technique used to lock the frequency of a

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

on a stable

optical cavity An optical cavity, resonating cavity or optical resonator is an arrangement of mirrors or other optical elements that forms a cavity resonator for light waves. Optical cavities are a major component of lasers, surrounding the gain medium and provi ...

References

External links

* American physicists American nuclear physicists National Medal of Science laureates Harvard University faculty 1919 births 2010 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences Canadian emigrants to the United States {{US-physicist-stub