Eugen Merzbacher

Eugen Merzbacher ( born April 9, 1921 in Berlin, † June 6, 2013 in Chapel Hill ( North Carolina)) was an American theoretical physicist who dealt with nuclear physics and nuclear physics.

Merzbacher fled as a Jew with his family in 1935 from Germany to Turkey, where his father worked as a chemist. He studied at the University of Istanbul and taught after graduating in 1943 four years at a high school in Ankara. In 1947 he went to the USA and studied physics at Harvard University, where his master's degree he made in 1948 and in 1950 received his doctorate under Julian Schwinger. 1950/51 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study. After that, he was at Duke University as a visiting professor and later ( until 1969 ) as a professor. 1959/1960 he was a visiting scientist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, where he was able to establish close contacts with Niels Bohr. 1967/68 he was a visiting professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. From 1969 he was professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he remained until his retirement in 1991. Twice he was there executive chairman, and from 1977 to 1982 eventually Chairman of the Physics Department. In 1969 he became Kenan Professor there. In 1972, he received the Thomas Jefferson Award from the university. He was co-founder of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory.

In 1986 he was a visiting scholar at the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling and 1991 Arnold Behring visiting professor at Williams College.

Merzbacher is known for its quantum mechanics textbook, first published in 1961.

In 1990 he was president of the American Physical Society. In 1977 he received the Humboldt Research Award. In 1993 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He is married and has four children.

Writings

• Quantum Mechanics, John Wiley, 1961, 1970, 3rd edition ( completely revised) 1998, ISBN 0-471-88702-1