John Bahcall
| John N. Bahcall | |
|---|---|
John N. Bahcall
|
|
| Born |
December 30, 1934 Shreveport, Louisiana |
| Died | August 17, 2005 (aged 70) New York City, New York |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | astrophysics |
| Institutions |
Institute for Advanced Study California Institute of Technology Indiana University Harvard University of Chicago |
| Known for |
solar neutrino problem Hubble Space Telescope |
| Notable awards |
Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (1994) Dan David Prize (2003) Enrico Fermi Award (2003) |
John Norris Bahcall (December 30, 1934 – August 17, 2005) was an American astrophysicist, best known for his contributions to the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and for his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Bahcall was born into a Jewish family in Shreveport, Louisiana, and would later describe an early aspiration to become a Reform rabbi. He did not take science classes at high school. He was high school state tennis champion and a national debate champion. Bahcall began his university studies at Louisiana State University as a philosophy student on a tennis scholarship, where he considered pursuing the rabbinate. He transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, still studying philosophy. He took his first physics class as a graduation requirement.
He was married to Princeton University astrophysics professor Neta Bahcall, whom he met as a graduate student at the Weizmann Institute in the 1960s. They had a daughter and two sons. He died in New York from a rare blood disorder.
He graduated with an A.B. in Physics from Berkeley in 1956, obtained his M.S. in physics in 1957 from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 1961. He became a research fellow in physics at Indiana University in 1960 and worked at the California Institute of Technology from 1962 to 1970, where he worked alongside Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and William Fowler.
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