Lyman Spitzer
Lyman Spitzer, Jr. ( born June 26, 1914 in Toledo ( Ohio), † March 31, 1997 in Princeton (New Jersey) ) was an American astrophysicist. He made important contributions to theoretical astrophysics and plasma physics and was a driving force in the development of space-based telescopes.
Spitzer was born in 1914 in Toledo (Ohio ), the son of a businessman. After studies at Yale University and at the University of Cambridge, he attended Princeton University, where he received his doctorate in 1938 with Henry Norris Russell on a theme from the physics of stellar atmospheres. After a research fellowship at Harvard University, he again went to Yale University. During World War II he was involved in the development of sonar for submarine combat. In 1947 he became head of the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University, which he continued to develop along with Martin Schwarzschild as a leading research institution.
Spitzer is one of the originators of the idea of space-based telescopes. As early as 1946 he described the benefits due to missing air turbulence and accessibility further wavelength ranges. Later, he played a central role in the realization of space-based telescopes such as OAO -3 ( Copernicus) and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Spitzer conducted research in many fields of physics and astrophysics, especially the physics of interstellar matter, stellar dynamics, plasma physics and nuclear fusion. Spitzer noted that the interstellar matter consists of several phases of different temperature and density. Spitzer On the stellarator concept goes back for experiments on controlled thermonuclear fusion, developed in the project Matterhorn (nuclear fusion research in the precursor of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory ) at Princeton University in the 1950s.
Lyman Spitzer was a passionate mountaineer and is also known for his first ascent of Mount Thor on Baffin Island.
Works (selection)
- Physics of Fully Ionized gas, 2nd Edition, 1962 ( New York: Interscience )
- Diffuse Matter in Space, 1968 ( New York: Interscience )
- Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium, 1978 ( New York: Wiley- Interscience )
- Dynamical Evolution of Globular Clusters, 1987 ( Princeton: Princeton University Press)