Jesse Beams

Jesse Wakefield Beams ( born December 25, 1898 in Belle Plaine, Kansas, † July 23, 1977 ) was an American experimental physicist.

Life

Beams was the son of farmers and grew up on a farm. He studied physics and mathematics at the Fairmount College in Wichita ( bachelor's degree 1921) and at the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a Master 's degree in Physics in 1922. He taught one year physics ( and mathematics) at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. After that he went to the University of Virginia, where he received his doctorate in 1925 in physics at Carroll M. Sparrow. The subject of the study was the photoelectric effect (measurement of the amount of time between the absorption of the photon and the electron emission ), for which he built with high speed rotating mirror for generating short light pulses and circuits for the measurement of very short time intervals. In 1925/26 he was a National Research Fellow. As a post - graduate student, he spent three years at Ernest O. Lawrence (then at Yale University ), with which he continued to pursue the themes of his dissertation. Even now he could see the time differences photoelectric effect is not precisely determine, but he found an upper bound of three nanoseconds. During this time he was also instructor at Yale. In 1928 he became associate professor in 1930 and professor at the University of Virginia, where he remained for the rest of his career, was appointed in 1953 to Francis H. Smith Professor of Physics Emeritus and 1969, but did research there until his death in 1977. 1948-1962 he stood in front of the physics faculty.

He was married to Maxine Sutherland beams since 1931.

Work

During World War II he worked in the Manhattan Project, where he used his ultra-centrifuge for uranium enrichment and the basic function of ability demonstrated (1941 ), which was abandoned in the United States in January 1944 in favor of the diffusion method. The gas centrifuge technology was then developed by Gernot Zippe, Max Steenbeck and Soviet scientists independently to maturity and later applied in Western Europe to enrich uranium. Zippe also visited Beams 1958 to 1960 at the University of Virginia. Beams since the early 1930s worked on the centrifuge technology that it developed up to 1.5 million cycles per second ( ultracentrifuge ). He developed a magnetic bearing for the rotors (from about 1934) the ultracentrifuge, with early patents from 1941. Additionally, the rotors of the ultracentrifuge in a high vacuum were.

The ultracentrifuge technique of beams has been applied in biology since the 1930s, even beams even turned particularly from the 1960s onwards applications he developed apparatus in biology and biophysics to, partly in collaboration with the biochemistry professor at the University of Virginia Donald Kupke. Applications in materials science, he examined already in the 1930s and found, for example, that thin metallic films were much more stable than eg Metal balls. He wrote the article centrifuge in the 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and 1974.

He also developed 1933/34, with colleagues at the University of Virginia, one of the first linear accelerator for electrons by the design principle of Rolf Wideröe further pursued (whatever did this from about 1930 William Webster Hansen at Stanford ). and apparatus for accurate measurement of the gravitational constant, a further development of the classic Cavendish experiment. He improved so that before his death the accuracy of the measurements to date an order of magnitude ( with further potential). Before his death, he also designed an experiment to test Paul Dirac 's hypothesis of the continuous creation of matter and to test a possible variability of the gravitational constant (theory of Dirac ).

Also in the 1970's, he developed a highly accurate apparatus for measuring the density and viscosity of liquids, based on the use of a magnetic suspension of a small cylinder in a liquid.

Memberships and Honors

In 1967 he received the National Medal of Science, 1958 the Lewis Prize of the American Philosophical Society, 1956, the John Scott Medal of the American Physical Society and in 1942 the Howard N. Potts Medal. He also received the first Thomas Jefferson Award from the University of Virginia. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1943 ), the Virginia Academy of Sciences (President 1947), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1949 ), the American Philosophical Society (Vice President 1960-1963 ) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( Vice President 1943). He was more honorary doctorates ( College of William and Mary, University of North Carolina, Washington and Lee University, Florida Institute of Technology, Yale ). He was long in the scientific council of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies ( 1948-1954 and 1960-1970 ), from 1951 to 1955 in Leitungsrat the National Research Council, 1954 to 1960 the Council of the Atomic Energy Commission and from 1942 to 1960 in the scientific advisory body to the Aberdeen Proving Ground ( Ballistiklabor the U.S. Army ). In 1971 he became a Fellow for Life of the Franklin Institute.

1958 to 1959 he was president of the American Physical Society. The 1973 donated Jesse W. Beams Award of the American Physical Society is named in his honor. It is awarded for physical research in the southeastern United States.

Writings

• E. O. Lawrence On the nature of light, Proc. Nat. Acad., Volume 13, 1927, p 207
• Ultra High-speed rotation, Scientific American, Volume 204, 1961, pp. 135
• With F. Haynes The Separation of Isotopes by Centrifuging, Physical Review, Volume 50, 1936, pp. 491-492
• Production and Use of High Centrifugal Fields, Science, Volume 120, 1954, pp. 619-625
• High speed rotation, Physics Today, 1959, Issue 7
• Early History of the Gas Centrifuge work in the United States, Charlottesville, University of Virginia, 1975 ( in collaboration with Union Carbide Corp.. Nuclear Division in Oak Ridge )
• Finding a better value for G, Physics Today, 1971, Issue 5