Julian Schwinger was born on 12th February 1918 in New York City. The principal
direction of his life was fixed at an early age by an intense awareness of
physics, and its study became an all-engrossing activity. To judge by a first
publication, he debuted as a professional physicist at the age of sixteen. He
was allowed to progress rapidly through the public school system of New York
City. Through the kind interest of some friends, and especially I.
I. Rabi of Columbia University, he
transferred to that institution, where he completed his college education.
Although his thesis had been written some two or three years earlier, it was in
1939 that he received the Ph. D. degree.
For the next two years he was at the University
of California, Berkeley, first as a National Research Fellow and then as
assistant to J. R. Oppenheimer. The outbreak of the Pactfic war found Schwinger
as an Instructor, teaching elementary physics to engineering students at Purdue
University.
War activities were largely confined to the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Being a confirmed solitary worker, he
became the night research staff. More scientific influences were also at work.
He first approached electromagnetic radar problems as a nuclear physicist, but
soon began to think of nuclear physics in the language of electrical
engineering. That would eventually emerge as the effective range formulation of
nuclear scattering. Then, being conscious of the large microwave powers
available, Schwinger began to think about electron accelerators, which led to
the question of radiation by electrons in magnetic fields. In studying the
latter problem he was reminded, at the classical level, that the reaction of the
electron's field alters the properties of the particle, including its mass. This
would be significant in the intensive developments of quantum electrodynamics,
which were soon to follow.
With the termination of the war Dr. Schwinger accepted an appointment as
Associate Professor at Harvard University. Two years later he became full
Professor. That was also the year of his marriage to Clarice Carrol of Boston.
In subsequent years, he worked in a number of directions, but there was a
pattern of concentration on general theoretical questions rather than specific
problems of immediate experimental concern, which were nearer to the center ot
hls earlier work. A speculative approach to physics has its dangers, but it can
have its rewards. Schwinger was particularly pleased by an anticipation, early
in 1957, of the existence of two different neutrinos associated, respectively,
with the electron and the muon. This has been confirmed experimentally only
rather recently. A related and somewhat earlier speculation, that all weak
interactions are transmitted by heavy, charged, unit-spin particles still awaits
a decisive experimental test. Schwinger's policy of finding theoretical virtues
in experimentally unknown particles has culminated recently in a revived concern
with magnetically charged particles, which may also be involved in the
understanding of strong interactions.
In later years, Schwinger has followed his own advice about the practical
importance of a phenomenological theory of particles. He has invented and
systematically developed source theory, which deals uniformly with strongly
interacting particles, photons, and gravitons, thus providing a general approach
to all physical phenomena. This work has been described in two volumes published
under the title "Particles, Sources, and Fields".
Awards and other honors include the first Einstein Prize (1951), the U. S.
National Medal of Science (1964), honorary D. Sc. degrees from Purdue University
(1961) and Harvard University (1962), and the Nature of Light Award of the U. S.
National Academy of Sciences (1949). Prof. Schwinger is a member of the latter
body, and a sponsor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
From Nobel
Lectures, Physics 1963-1970.
Schwinger died in 1994
|
IF
YOU SEE A YELLOW "ENTER" BUTTON ABOVE, PLEASE DO NOT "CLICK" ON IT.
THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO A GAMBLING SITE WHICH WAS ADDED TO OUR WEB SITE
WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION!
This web site is growing by 150 pages per month - Click
