John N. Bahcall

John Norris Bahcall (born 30 December 1934 in Shreveport, Louisiana; † August 17, 2005 in New York City, NY ) was a leading American astrophysicist. He found new ways to explore the sun, and was the initiator of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Life

Bahcall was born in 1934 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was first Rabbi, before studying physics at the University of California, Berkeley (Bachelor 1956) and University of Chicago (Master 1957). At Harvard University, he received his doctorate in 1961.

From 1960 he was at Indiana University and in 1962 at Caltech, where he was an Assistant Professor in 1965 and then Associate Professor. He has worked since 1968 at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS ) in Princeton, at the Albert Einstein had taught, and was since 1971 and since 1997 Professor Richard Black Professor of Natural Science in the School of Natural Sciences at the IAS. He dealt with the so-called solar neutrino problem and quasars, and has thus contributed significantly to the current astronomical research. Since the 70s he was the initiator of the Hubble Space Telescope.

John N. Bahcall was president of the American astronomers Association (American Astronomical Society ) By 1990 to 1992. He also served as consultant to NASA and the Nobel Prize Committee. Bahcall has published about 500 scientific papers, books and articles on his research.

He was married since 1966 with Neta Bahcall, also astrophysicists and professor at Princeton University. They have three children ( Safi, Dan and Orli ).

Quote

• John Bahcall described the universe as " unattractive, implausible, crazy, but beautiful. " ( Interview with the newspaper The Star-Ledger of Newark in February 2003)

Literature (selection )

• John N. Bahcall: Neutrino Astrophysics. Cambridge University Press, 1989, ISBN 0 - 521-37975 -X
• John N. Bahcall and Alan Lightman: Time for the Stars. Astronomy in the 1990s. Warner Books, 1994, ISBN 0-446-67024-3
• John N. Bahcall and Jeremiah P. Ostriker: Unsolved Problems in Astrophysics. Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-691-01607-0
• John N. Bahcall, WC Haxton and K. Kubodera: Neutrino Physics. Its Impact on Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2001, ISBN 981-02-4472- X
• John N. Bahcall, Raymond Davis Jr. and Peter Parker: solar neutrinos. Westview Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8133-4037-3
• John N. Bahcall, Tsvi Piran and Steven Weinberg: Dark Matter in the Universe. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2004, ISBN 981-238-841-9

Awards

In 1976 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2004, he was vice president of the American Physical Society.

Many colleagues expected constant regularity in the Nobel Prize for John Bahcall, who remained to him but failed. The neutrino researchers Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba wanted to share their acquired 2002 Nobel Prize for physics with him. John Bahcall has refused out of modesty.