Frederick Seitz

Frederick Seitz ( born July 4, 1911 in San Francisco, † March 2, 2008 in New York City ) was an American physicist.

Life

Seitz concluded study mathematics at Stanford after three years in 1932 as a bachelor's degree. His further career took him to Princeton University, where he received his doctorate in 1934 under Eugene Wigner in physics. He dealt with metals, in promotion with sodium, and their internal structure. The two developed the Wigner -Seitz cell. From 1935 to 1937 he worked at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Rochester, New York, then he became the first researchers in the labs of General Electric, then at the University of Pennsylvania. During this period, his widely acclaimed book, The Modern Theory of Solids, published in 1940 and had the development of solid state physics on the topic arose.

Around 1939, engaged in on behalf of the Radiation Laboratory with cleaning process of silicon and at the same time on behalf of the chemical company DuPont with the improvement of white pigments for wall color. Even in the 1930s toxic lead compounds have been used as pigments. These pigments were then replaced with non-toxic titanium dioxide, and DuPont was looking for improved manufacturing processes for titanium dioxide pigment or for a cheaper fabric. The only possible substitute appeared at that time exactly stoichiometric silicon carbide ( SiC) to be. He developed a who later became known as DuPont - process method, pure silicon by reduction of silicon tetrachloride with zinc to produce at relatively low cost. As of mid-1941, so were the researchers of the British-American radar project small silicon crystals of high quality.

In 1943 he published his next book with The Physics of Metals. From 1942 to 1949 he worked for the Carnegie Institute of Technology, the current Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, works. During the Second World War, he conducted research among others in the field of nuclear and radar technology, in the years 1946 and 1947 he worked for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. In 1949 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, from 1957, he was head from 1964 and Dean and Vice President for Research. There, he managed to win for an extensive and newly formed research group John Bardeen. He was 1962-1969 President of the National Academy of Sciences and from 1968 until his retirement in 1979 president of the Rockefeller University in New York City. During the period of his presidency at Rockefeller University research programs were launched on reproduction, cell and molecular biology. In addition, the university was able to buy land in the area of ​​Anthropology and Ecology in Millbrook, New York, where later field research on animal behavior and environmental biology were carried out. Also, the archive center in Pocantico, New York, was created in the course of his tenure. In the years 1959 and 1960 he advised also NATO, from 1962 to 1969 he was a member of the scientific advisory board of the President of the United States.

After his retirement Seitz worked as a research consultant for the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company.

Seitz 1984 belonged to the founders of the conservative think tank the George C. Marshall Institute, which he chaired until 2001. In 1994 he published the book On the Frontier, My Life in Science. He was a signatory to the 1995 Leipzig Declaration, in which the man-made global warming is questioned, and co-initiator of the later Oregon Petition against the Kyoto protocol.

Honors

Over time, his work has been honored by various institutions, he received

In 1983 he was awarded the fourth assigned by the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation Vannevar Bush Award and awarded by the American College of Physicians R. Loveland Memorial Award. The Rockefeller University awarded him in 2000 for his services to her house the David Rockefeller Award. There are also a total of 32 different universities around the world, awarded honors.

In 1951 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1965 their first full-time active president. In addition, he was one of several scientific organizations, including the American Physical Society, which he was president in 1961, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Society for Metals, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Engineers, the American Crystallographic Society, the Optical Society of America, the Washington Academy of Science and other European scientific societies.