Leon Cooper
Leon N Cooper  | |
|---|---|
 Cooper in 2007 | |
| Born | February 28, 1930 Bronx, New York, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Known for | Superconductivity Cooper pairs |
| Awards | Nobel Prize in Physics (1972) Comstock Prize in Physics (1968) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Brown University |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Serber |
| Doctoral students | Elie Bienenstock Paul Munro Nathan Intrator Omer Artun Michael Perrone Alan Saul |
Leon N Cooper[1] (born February 28, 1930) is an American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, who with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer, developed the BCS theory of superconductivity.[2][3] He is also the namesake of the Cooper pair and co-developer of the BCM theory of synaptic plasticity.[4]
Biography and career
Cooper graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1947[5][6] and received a B.A. in 1951,[7] M.A. in 1953,[7] and Ph.D. in 1954 from Columbia University.[7][8] He spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study and taught at the University of Illinois and Ohio State University before coming to Brown University in 1958.[8] He is the Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Science at Brown, and Director of the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems.
He has carried out research at various institutions including the Institute for Advanced Study, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
The character Sheldon Cooper, featured in the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, is named in part after Leon Cooper.[9]
Memberships and honors
- Fellow of the American Physical Society
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences
- Member of the American Philosophical Society
- Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Associate member of the Neuroscience Research Program
- Research Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (1959–1966)
- Fellow of the Guggenheim Institute (1965–66)
- Nobel Prize Recipient for Physics (1972)[7]
- Co-winner (with Dr. Schrieffer) of the Comstock Prize in Physics of the National Academy of Sciences (1968)[10]
- Received the Award of Excellence, Graduate Faculties Alumni of Columbia University
- Received the Descartes Medal, Academie de Paris, Université René Descartes.
- Received the John Jay Award of Columbia College (1985)[7]
- Recipient of seven honorary doctorates[7]
Publications
Cooper is the author of Science and Human Experience - a collection of essays, including previously unpublished material, on issues such as consciousness and the structure of space. (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Cooper is the author of an unconventional liberal-arts physics textbook, originally An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics (Harper and Row, 1968) and still in print in a somewhat condensed form as Physics: Structure and Meaning (Lebanon: New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1992).
- Cooper, L. N. & J. Rainwater. "Theory of Multiple Coulomb Scattering from Extended Nuclei", Nevis Cyclotron Laboratories at Columbia University, Office of Naval Research (ONR), United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (August 1954).
- Cooper, L. N., Lee, H. J., Schwartz, B. B. & W. Silvert. "Theory of the Knight Shift and Flux Quantization in Superconductors", Brown University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (May 1962).
- Cooper, L. N. & Feldman, D. "BCS: 50 years", Brown University, (November 2010).
References
- ^ Many printed materials, including the Nobel Prize website, have referred to Cooper as “Leon Neil Cooper”. However, the middle initial N does not stand for Neil, or for any other name. The correct form of the name is, thus, “Leon N Cooper”, with no abbreviation dots (an earlier source http://revista.cecm.usp.br/arquivo/2006jan/entrevista/cooper is no longer available)[citation needed]
- ^ "Superconductivity". CERN official website. CERN.
- ^ Weinberg, Steven (February 2008). "From BSC to the LHC". CERN Courier. 48 (1): 17–21.
- ^ Bienenstock, Elie (1982). "Theory for the development of neuron selectivity: orientation specificity and binocular interaction in visual cortex". The Journal of Neuroscience. 2 (1): 32–48.
- ^ "Bronx Science Honored as Historic Physics Site by the American Physical Society". bxscience.edu. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
- ^ MacDonald, Kerri (15 October 2010). "A Nobel Laureate Returns Home to Bronx Science". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c d e f "Leon Cooper". research.brown.edu. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
- ^ a b Vanderkam, Laura (15 July 2008). "From Biology to Physics and Back Again: Leon Cooper". Scientific American. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ The Big Bang Theory, la fórmula perfecta del humor
- ^ "Comstock Prize in Physics". National Academy of Sciences.
External links
- Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
- Leon Neil Cooper
- Brown University researcher profile
- Brown University Physics Department profile
- Critical Review evaluations of Professor Cooper
- Leon Cooper at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- 1930 births
- American Nobel laureates
- American physicists
- Brown University faculty
- People associated with CERN
- Columbia University
- Fellows of the American Physical Society
- Guggenheim Fellows
- Jewish American scientists
- Jewish physicists
- Living people
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- National Academy of Sciences laureates
- Nobel laureates in Physics
- Superconductivity
- The Bronx High School of Science alumni
- Winners of the Comstock Prize in Physics