John Hasbrouck Van Vleck | |
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John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, 1974
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Born | March 13, 1899 Middletown, Connecticut |
Died | October 27, 1980 Cambridge, Massachusetts |
(aged 81)
Nationality | United States |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions |
University of Minnesota University of Wisconsin–Madison Harvard University University of Oxford Balliol College, Oxford |
Alma mater |
University of Wisconsin-Madison Harvard University |
Doctoral advisor | Edwin C. Kemble |
Doctoral students |
Robert Serber Edward Mills Purcell Philip Anderson Thomas Kuhn John Atanasoff |
Notable awards |
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John Hasbrouck Van Vleck (March 13, 1899 – October 27, 1980) was an American physicist and mathematician, co-awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electrons in magnetic solids.
Born in Middletown, Connecticut, the son of mathematician Edward Burr Van Vleck and grandson of astronomer John Monroe Van Vleck, he grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and received an A.B. degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1920. Then he went to Harvard for graduate studies and earned a Ph.D degree in 1922.
He joined the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in 1923, then moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison before settling at Harvard. He also earned Honorary D. Sc., or D. Honoris Causa, degree from Wesleyan University in 1936.
J. H. Van Vleck established the fundamentals of the quantum mechanical theory of magnetism and the crystal field theory (chemical bonding in metal complexes). He is regarded as the Father of Modern Magnetism.