Francis E. Low
Francis Eugene Low ( born October 27, 1921 in New York City; † February 21, 2007 in Haverford, Pennsylvania) was an American theoretical physicist.
Life and work
Low was the son of a mining engineer and a doctor and grew up in Greenwich Village. His grandfather Sergius Ingerman was also a physician and a founder of the Socialist Party in the USA. In his youth he wanted to be a pianist ( later he even wrote a musical about Huckleberry Finn ), but discovered during the visit of the French International School ( Ecole International) in Geneva, his love of physics. Low studied at Harvard University in New York and worked after graduation ( Bachelor 1942) in the Manhattan Project ( theoretical work on uranium enrichment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and provided service in the U.S. Army (10th Mountain Division, as a mule driver and later as a sergeant as an artillery observer ). In 1947 he received his master's degree at Columbia University, where he received his doctorate in 1949 and until 1950 Instructor. 1950 to 1952 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (as well as 1967/68 ). From 1952 he was professor ( first assistant professor and later full professor ) at the University of Illinois and from 1957 as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT ), where he was Carl Taylor Compton Professor of Physics from 1968 to 1985 and 1979 to 1985 Director of the Laboratory for nuclear Physics ( Laboratory for nuclear Science ) ( where he remained until 1992, " Institute Professor " in 1985 ) and from 1974 to 1983 director of the Center of Theoretical Physics was. 1980 to 1985 he was Provost of MIT, where he among other things the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research brought to MIT. In 1991 he retired, but still held until 1996 lectures and remained until his death Professor Emeritus.
Low with Murray Gell-Mann one of the founders of the theory of renormalization group and both resulted independently a the Bethe- Salpeter equation.
In 1969 he was one of the Union of Concerned Scientists founding members and a short time their chairman, but resigned because some members refused to study the safety of nuclear reactors.
Since 1967 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Among his doctoral Alan Guth (1972 ), Mitchell Feigenbaum (1970) and Sze - Hoi Tye.
1948 until her death in 2004, he was married to the psychologist Natalie Sadigur and had with her a son and two daughters.
Writings
- Classical Field Theory. Electromagnetism and Gravitation. John Wiley, 1997