Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (; July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an 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 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 1955 "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum." The Nobel Committee that year awarded half the prize to Lamb and the other half to

Polykarp Kusch Polykarp Kusch (January 26, 1911 – March 20, 1993) was a German-born American physicist. In 1955, the Nobel Committee gave a divided Nobel Prize for Physics, with one half going to Kusch for his accurate determination that the magnetic momen ...

, who won "for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron." Lamb was able to determine precisely a surprising shift in

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

energies in a hydrogen atom (see

Lamb shift In physics, the Lamb shift, named after Willis Lamb, is a difference in energy between two energy levels 2''S''1/2 and 2''P''1/2 (in term symbol notation) of the hydrogen atom which was not predicted by the Dirac equation, according to which th ...

). Lamb was a professor at the

University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences The University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, considered the largest institute for optics education in the United States, is dedicated to research and education in optics with an emphasis on optical engineering. The college offers more ...

Biography

Lamb was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and attended

Los Angeles High School Los Angeles High School is the oldest Public education#United States, public high school in the Southern California, Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are royal blue and white and the teams are ...

. First admitted in 1930, he received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in Chemistry from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1934. For theoretical work on scattering of neutrons by a crystal, guided by

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...

, he received the

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in physics in 1938. Because of limited computational methods available at the time, this research narrowly missed revealing the

Mössbauer Effect The Mössbauer effect, or recoilless nuclear resonance fluorescence, is a physical phenomenon discovered by Rudolf Mössbauer in 1958. It involves the resonant and recoil-free emission and absorption of gamma radiation by atomic nuclei bound in ...

, 19 years before its recognition by Mössbauer. He worked on nuclear theory, laser physics, and verifying quantum mechanics. Lamb was a physics professor at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

from 1951 to 1956. Lamb was the

Wykeham Professor The University of Oxford has three statutory professorships named after William of Wykeham, who founded New College. Logic The Wykeham Professorship in Logic was established in 1859, although it was not known as the Wykeham chair until later. I ...

of Physics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

from 1956 to 1962, and also taught at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

, Columbia and the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. He was elected a 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 ...

in 1963. Lamb is remembered as a "rare theorist turned experimentalist" by D. Kaiser.

Quantum physics

In addition to his crucial and famous contribution to

quantum electrodynamics In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and spec ...

via the

, in the latter part of his career he paid increasing attention to the field of quantum measurements.W. E. Lamb, Quantum theory of measurement, in ''Noise and Chaos in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems'' (Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1990) pp. 1-14. In one of his writings Lamb stated that "most people who use quantum mechanics have little need to know much about the interpretation of the subject." Lamb was also openly critical of many of the interpretational trends on quantum mechanics.

Personal

In 1939 Lamb married his first wife, Ursula Schäfer, a German student, who became a distinguished historian of Latin America (and assumed his last name). accessed 5 July 2016. After her death in 1996, he married physicist

Bruria Kaufman Bruria Kaufman (August 21, 1918 – January 7, 2010) was an American theoretical physicist. She is known for contributions to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, to statistical physics, where she used applied spinor analysis to red ...

in 1996, whom he later divorced. In 2008 he married Elsie Wattson. Lamb died on May 15, 2008, at the age of 94, due to complications of a gallstone disorder.

References

External links

* *
Hans Bethe talking about Willis Lamb
(video)
Willis E Lamb Award
for Laser Science and Quantum Optics. * including his Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1955 ''Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom''

(This photograph taken at ''Lasers'' '92 includes, right to left,

Marlan Scully Marlan Orvil Scully (born August 3, 1939) is an American physicist best known for his work in theoretical quantum optics. He is a professor at Texas A&M University and Princeton University. Additionally, in 2012 he developed a lab at the Baylor ...

, W. E. Lamb,

John L. Hall John Lewis "Jan" Hall (born August 21, 1934) is an American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics. He shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics with Theodor W. Hänsch and Roy Glauber for his work in precision spectroscopy. Biography Born ...

, and F. J. Duarte).
Obituary:Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning PhysicistNational Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamb, Willis Eugene, Jr 1913 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American physicists American Nobel laureates Quantum physicists Optical physicists Experimental physicists Columbia University faculty National Medal of Science laureates Nobel laureates in Physics University of Arizona faculty UC Berkeley College of Chemistry alumni Wykeham Professors of Physics Laser researchers American people of German descent Fellows of the Optical Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Spectroscopists Fellows of the American Physical Society