David Lee (physicist)
David Morris Lee | |
---|---|
![]() David Morris Lee in 2007 | |
Born | |
Alma mater | Yale University University of Connecticut Harvard University |
Spouse | Dana (2 children) |
Awards | Nobel Prize in Physics (1996) Oliver Buckley Prize (1981) Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize (1976) Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1970) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | Cornell University Texas A&M University (2009-present) |
Doctoral advisor | Henry A. Fairbank |
David Morris Lee (born January 20, 1931) is an American physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics with Robert C. Richardson and Douglas Osheroff "for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3."[1]
Personal life
Lee was born and raised in Rye, New York.[2] His parents, Annette (Franks), a teacher, and Marvin Lee, an electrical engineer, were children of Jewish immigrants from England and Lithuania. He graduated from Harvard University in 1952 and then joined the U.S. Army for 22 months. After being discharged from the army, he obtained a master's degree from the University of Connecticut. In 1955 Lee entered the Ph.D. program at Yale University where he worked under Henry A. Fairbank in the low-temperature physics group, doing experimental research on liquid 3He.
After graduating from Yale in 1959, Lee took a job at Cornell University, where he was responsible for setting up the new Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics. Shortly after arriving at Cornell he met his future wife, Dana, then a PhD student in another department; the couple went on to have two sons.
Lee moved his laboratory from Cornell to Texas A&M University on November 16, 2009.[3][4][5]
In the summer of 2016, Lee lost his wife, Dana, due to un-diagnosed health issues.
Work
The work that led to Lee's Nobel Prize was performed in the early 1970s. Lee, together with Robert C. Richardson and graduate student, Doug Osheroff used a Pomeranchuk cell to investigate the behaviour of 3He at temperatures within a few thousandths of a degree of absolute zero. They discovered unexpected effects in their measurements, which they eventually explained as phase transitions to a superfluid phase of 3He.[6][7] Lee, Richardson and Osheroff were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 for this discovery.
Lee's research also covered a number of other topics in low-temperature physics, particularly relating to liquid, solid and superfluid helium (4He, 3He and mixtures of the two). Particular discoveries include the antiferromagnetic ordering in solid helium-3, nuclear spin waves in spin polarized atomic hydrogen gas with Jack H. Freed, and the tri-critical point on the phase separation curve of liquid 4He-3He, in collaboration with his Cornell colleague John Reppy. His former research group at Cornell currently studies impurity-helium solids.
As well as the Nobel Prize, other prizes won by Lee include the 1976 Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize of the British Institute of Physics and the 1981 Oliver Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society along with Doug Osheroff and Robert Richardson for their superfluid 3He work.
Lee is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Lee is currently teaching physics at Texas A&M University and continuing his (formerly Cornell-based) research program there as well.
See also
References
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1996". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
- ^ Biography on the Nobel Foundation website
- ^ http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2009/10/01/News/Nobel.Prize.Winner.Joins.Am.Faculty-3788924.shtml
- ^ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6643911.html
- ^ http://www.science.tamu.edu/articles/684/
- ^ Osheroff, DD; RC Richardson; DM Lee (1972-04-03). "Evidence for a New Phase of Solid He3". Physical Review Letters. 28 (14). American Physical Society: 885–888. Bibcode:1972PhRvL..28..885O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.28.885.
- ^ Osheroff, DD; WJ Gully; RC Richardson; DM Lee (1972-10-02). "New Magnetic Phenomena in Liquid He3 below 3mK". Physical Review Letters. 29 (14). American Physical Society: 920–923. Bibcode:1972PhRvL..29..920O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.29.920.
External links
- 1931 births
- Living people
- American people of British-Jewish descent
- American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
- Jewish American scientists
- Jewish physicists
- Harvard University alumni
- University of Connecticut alumni
- Yale University alumni
- Cornell University faculty
- Cornell Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics
- American physicists
- Nobel laureates in Physics
- American Nobel laureates
- University of Florida faculty
- People from Rye, New York
- Texas A&M University faculty
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners
- Guggenheim Fellows