Leon Cooper
Leon Cooper | |
|---|---|
 Cooper in 2007 | |
| Born | Leon N. Kupchik February 28, 1930 The Bronx, New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 23, 2024 (aged 94) Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Columbia University (BA, MA, PhD) |
| Known for | Cooper pairs BCM theory BCS theory |
| Awards | John Jay Award (1985) Nobel Prize in Physics (1972) Comstock Prize in Physics (1968) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Brown University |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Serber |
Leon N. Cooper (né Kupchik; February 28, 1930 – October 23, 2024) was an American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate who, with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer, developed the BCS theory of superconductivity.[1][2] His name is also associated with the Cooper pair and the BCM theory of synaptic plasticity.[3]
Background
[edit]Leon N. Kupchick was born to a Jewish family in the Bronx on February 28, 1930.[4][5] While some sources have suggested the N. stood for "Neil", it was not short for anything.[5] His father immigrated to the United States from Belarus, and his mother, who died when he was seven, was from Poland.[5] His father later changed the family's surname to Cooper.[5]
Cooper graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1947[6][7] and received a BA in 1951,[8] MA in 1953,[8] and PhD in 1954 from Columbia University.[8][9]
Career
[edit]Cooper spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study and taught at the University of Illinois and Ohio State University before coming to Brown University in 1958.[9]
In 1974, Cooper became the Thomas J. Watson Sr. Professor of Science at Brown, and director of the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems which he founded in 1973.[8] Along with colleague Charles Elbaum, he founded the tech company Nestor, dedicated to finding commercial applications for artificial neural networks.[10] Nestor, along with Intel, developed the Ni1000 neural network computer chip in 1994.[11]
He carried out research at various institutions including the Institute for Advanced Study and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
Personal life and death
[edit]
In 1969 Cooper married Kay Allard. They had two children.[12] The character Sheldon Cooper, featured in the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, is named in part after Leon Cooper.[13]
Leon Cooper died on October 23, 2024, at his home in Providence, Rhode Island.[5]
Memberships and honors
[edit]- Fellow of the American Physical Society
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences
- Member of the American Philosophical Society
- Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Associate member of the Neuroscience Research Program
- Research fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (1959–1966)
- Fellow of the Guggenheim Institute (1965–66)
- Nobel Prize Recipient for Physics (1972)[8]
- Co-winner (with Dr. Schrieffer) of the Comstock Prize in Physics of the National Academy of Sciences (1968)[14]
- Received the Award of Excellence, Graduate Faculties Alumni of Columbia University
- Received the Descartes Medal, Academie de Paris, Université René Descartes.
- Received the John Jay Award of Columbia College (1985)[8]
- Recipient of seven honorary doctorates[8]
Publications
[edit]Cooper was the author of Science and Human Experience – a collection of essays, including previously unpublished material, on issues such as consciousness and the structure of space. (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Cooper was the author of an unconventional liberal-arts physics textbook, originally An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics (Harper and Row, 1968)[15] and still in print in a somewhat condensed form as Physics: Structure and Meaning (Lebanon: New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1992).
- Cooper, L. N. & J. Rainwater. "Theory of Multiple Coulomb Scattering from Extended Nuclei", Nevis Cyclotron Laboratories at Columbia University, Office of Naval Research (ONR), United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (August 1954).
- Cooper, Leon N. (1956). "Bound Electron Pairs in a Degenerate Fermi Gas". Physical Review. 104 (4): 1189–1190. Bibcode:1956PhRv..104.1189C. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.104.1189.
- Bardeen, J.; Cooper, L. N.; Schrieffer, J. R. (1957). "Microscopic Theory of Superconductivity". Physical Review. 106 (1): 162–164. Bibcode:1957PhRv..106..162B. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.106.162.
- Bardeen, J.; Cooper, L. N.; Schrieffer, J. R. (1957). "Theory of Superconductivity". Physical Review. 108 (5): 1175–1204. Bibcode:1957PhRv..108.1175B. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.108.1175.
- Cooper, L. N., Lee, H. J., Schwartz, B. B. & W. Silvert. "Theory of the Knight Shift and Flux Quantization in Superconductors", Brown University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (May 1962).
- Cooper, L. N. & Feldman, D. "BCS: 50 years", World Scientific Publishing Co., (November 2010).
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Superconductivity". CERN official website. CERN. July 21, 2023.
- ^ Weinberg, Steven (February 2008). "From BSC to the LHC". CERN Courier. 48 (1): 17–21.
- ^ Bienenstock, Elie (1982). "Theory for the development of neuron selectivity: orientation specificity and binocular interaction in visual cortex". The Journal of Neuroscience. 2 (1): 32–48. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.02-01-00032.1982. PMC 6564292. PMID 7054394.
- ^ "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Physics". www.jinfo.org. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e McClain, Dylan Loeb (October 25, 2024). "Leon Cooper Dies at 94; Nobelist Unlocked Secrets of Superconductivity". The New York Times. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
- ^ "Bronx Science Honored as Historic Physics Site by the American Physical Society". bxscience.edu. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
- ^ MacDonald, Kerri (October 15, 2010). "A Nobel Laureate Returns Home to Bronx Science". The New York Times. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Leon Cooper". research.brown.edu. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
- ^ a b Vanderkam, Laura (July 15, 2008). "From Biology to Physics and Back Again: Leon Cooper". Scientific American. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
- ^ Johnson, Colin (October 17, 1988). "Neural Network Startups Proliferate Across The U.S." The Scientist. 2 (19). Retrieved March 8, 2018.
- ^ "Nestor's neural chip destiny now in its own hands". Tech Monitor. April 14, 1994. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
- ^ Carey, Charles W. (2014). American Scientists. Infobase Publishing. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-4381-0807-0.
- ^ The Big Bang Theory, la fórmula perfecta del humor. lavoz.com.ar (October 31, 2010)
- ^ "Comstock Prize in Physics". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on December 29, 2010.
- ^ Cushing, James T. (1978). "Review of An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics by Leon N. Cooper". American Journal of Physics. 46 (1): 114–115. Bibcode:1978AmJPh..46..114C. doi:10.1119/1.11116.
External links
[edit]
- Leon Cooper on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1972 Microscopic Quantum Interference Effects in the Theory of Superconductivity
- Brown University researcher profile
- Brown University Physics Department profile
- Critical Review evaluations[permanent dead link] of Professor Cooper
- Leon Cooper at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- 1930 births
- 2024 deaths
- 20th-century American physicists
- 21st-century American physicists
- American Nobel laureates
- American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent
- American people of Polish-Jewish descent
- Brown University faculty
- Columbia College (New York) alumni
- Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
- Fellows of the American Physical Society
- Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
- Jewish American physicists
- Jewish neuroscientists
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Nobel laureates in Physics
- People associated with CERN
- Scientists from the Bronx
- Superconductivity
- The Bronx High School of Science alumni