Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. | |
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Norman F. Ramsey
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Born |
Washington, DC |
August 27, 1915
Died | November 4, 2011 Wayland, Massachusetts |
(aged 96)
Residence | United States |
Nationality | United States |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | Harvard University |
Alma mater | Columbia University, University of Cambridge |
Doctoral advisor | Isidor Isaac Rabi |
Doctoral students | David J. Wineland, Daniel Kleppner, Howard Berg |
Known for | Separated oscillatory field method |
Notable awards | Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award (1960) Davisson-Germer Prize (1974) IEEE Medal of Honor (1984) Rabi Prize (1985) Rumford Prize (1985) Oersted Medal (1988) National Medal of Science (1988) Nobel Prize in Physics (1989) Dirac Medal (1990) Vannevar Bush Award (1995) |
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (August 27, 1915 – November 4, 2011) was an American physicist who was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. A physics professor at Harvard University for most of his career, Ramsey also held several posts with such government and international agencies as NATO and the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Among his other accomplishments are helping to found the United States Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab.
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., on August 27, 1915, to Minna Bauer Ramsey, an instructor at the University of Kansas, and Norman Foster Ramsey, a 1905 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an officer in the Ordnance Department who rose to the rank of brigadier general during World War II, commanding the Rock Island Arsenal. He was raised as an Army brat, frequently moving from post to post, and lived in France for a time when his father was Liaison Officer with the Direction d'Artillerie and Assistant Military Attaché. This allowed him to skip a couple of grades along the way, so that he graduated from Leavenworth High School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, at the age of 15.