Joseph Weber
| Joe Weber | |
|---|---|
Joseph Weber (1919–2000). Depicted in US Naval Academy uniform in 1940.
|
|
| Born |
May 17, 1919 Paterson, New Jersey, USA |
| Died | September 30, 2000 (aged 81) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Resting place | United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland |
| Residence | USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions |
University of Maryland College Park Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton US Navy Bureau of Ships |
| Alma mater |
United States Naval Academy Naval Postgraduate School The Catholic University of America |
| Thesis | Microwave Technique in Chemical Kinetics (1951) |
| Doctoral advisor | Keith J. Laidler |
| Doctoral students | Walter Beam Urs Hochuli Robert L. Forward Joel Sinsky |
| Known for |
Weber bars Quantum electronics Gravitational wave detection Maser Laser |
| Influences |
Karl Herzfeld John Archibald Wheeler |
| Notable awards |
Guggenheim Fellowship (1955, 1962) National Research Council Fellowship (1955) Scientific Achievement Award from the Washington Academy of Sciences (1958) Babson Award of the Gravity Research Foundation (1959) Fulbright Scholarship (1963) Sigma Xi (1970) Boris Pregel Prize of the New York Academy of Sciences (1973) Maryland engineering hall of fame (1988) |
| Spouses | Anita Straus (1942 - 1971; her death) Virginia Trimble (1972 - 2000; his death) |
Joseph Weber (May 17, 1919 – September 30, 2000) was an American physicist. He gave the earliest public lecture on the principles behind the laser and the maser and developed the first gravitational wave detectors (Weber bars).
Weber was born in Paterson, New Jersey and attended Paterson public schools (and the Paterson Talmud Torah), graduating from the "Mechanic Arts Course" of Paterson Eastside High School in June 1935, just after his sixteenth birthday. He began his undergraduate education at Cooper Union, but to save his family the expense of his room and board he won admittance to the United States Naval Academy through a competitive exam. He graduated from the Academy in 1940.
He served aboard US Navy ships during WWII, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander. A memorable experience was his service on the "Lady Lex" USS Lexington (CV-2). Weber was the Officer of the Deck on the Lexington when the ship received word of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the Battle of the Coral Sea his carrier sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō and was in turn mortally damaged on May 8, 1942. Weber often regaled his students with the story of how the Lexington glowed incandescent as she slipped beneath the waves.
Later, he commanded the sub-chaser SC-690, first in the Caribbean, and later in the Mediterranean Sea. In that role, he took part in the invasion of Sicily at Gela Beach, in July, 1943.
...
Wikipedia