Robert B. Leighton

Robert Benjamin Leighton (September 10, 1919 – March 9, 1997) was a prominent American experimental physicist who spent his professional career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His work over the years spanned solid state physics, cosmic ray physics, the beginnings of modern particle physics, solar physics, the planets, infrared astronomy, and millimeter- and submillimeter-wave astronomy. In the latter four fields, his pioneering work opened up entirely new areas of research that subsequently developed into vigorous scientific communities.

Leighton was born in Detroit, where his father made precision dies for an automobile company. After moving to Seattle the family broke up, and his father returned to Detroit. His mother moved to downtown Los Angeles, where she worked as a maid in a hotel. Leighton grew up in Los Angeles and attended Los Angeles City College. He was accepted to Caltech as a junior in 1939 but lived at home, helping support his mother and himself with a job building X-ray equipment for the Kellogg Laboratory.

Leighton received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech in 1941. He then switched to physics and went on to obtain his M.S. in 1944, and his Ph.D. in 1947 with a thesis on the specific heat of face-centered cubic crystals. He joined the faculty in 1949 and later served as Division Chair of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy from 1970 to 1975. Leighton was a renowned teacher at Caltech. His Principles of Modern Physics, published in 1959, was a standard and influential textbook.

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