Leon Cooper
Leon Neil Cooper ( born February 28, 1930 in New York) is an American physicist. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1972 jointly with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer for the co-development of the BCS theory, which contributes to the explanation of superconductivity.
Life and work
Cooper studied at Columbia University ( bachelor's degree in 1951, master 1953), where he received his doctorate in 1954 (Mu - Mesonic atom and the electromagnetic radius of the nucleus ). 1954/1955 he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, and then to 1957 at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. In 1957 he became an Assistant Professor at Ohio State University in 1958 and initially associate professor and in 1962 professor at Brown University in Providence (Rhode Iceland ). In 1966, he was there Henry Ledyard Goddard University Professor and in 1974 Thomas J. Watson Senior Professor of Science and from 1992 director of the Institute of Neurosciences ( Institute of Brain and Neural Systems).
The main contribution of Cooper lies in the BCS theory. The BCS theory was developed 1955-1957 by John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer and builds on the concept of Cooper pairs that allows under certain conditions, a paired arrangement of electrons.
Later he worked on the theory of the brain, neural networks and the biology of learning.
Since 1975 he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Comstock Prize in Physics, he received Schrieffer 1968. He is also a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Society for Neuroscience and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1973 he became an honorary doctorate from Columbia University and the University of Sussex. He also holds an honorary doctorate of Gustaphus Adolphus College, the University of Illinois (1974 ), Brown University (1974 ), the University of Paris VI (Pierre et Marie Curie ) and the Ohio State University. In 1977 he received the French Descartes Medal ( University of Paris René Descartes) and 2000, the Medal of the College de France. 1959 to 1966 he was a Sloan Fellow and 1965/66 Guggenheim Fellow. He received the Excellence Award Graduate Faculties of Columbia University and the John Jay Award of Columbia College.
Trivia
The fictional character Sheldon Cooper from the TV series The Big Bang Theory, a gifted physicist, has been named after Leon Neil Cooper.
Writings
- Cooper: Bound electron pairs in a degenerate electron gas. In: Physical Review. Volume 104, 1956, pp. 1189
- Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer: Microscopic Theory of Superconductivity. In: Physical Review. Volume 106, 1957, p 162
- Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer: Theory of Superconductivity. In: Physical Review. Volume 108, 1957, pp. 1175
- Cooper: On the pairing interaction in the theory of superconductivity. In: Cargese Lectures. Gordon and Breach 1967
- Cooper: An introduction to the meaning and structure of physics. Harper and Row, 1968, 1970
- Cooper: Origins of theory of superconductivity. In: IEEE Transactions Magnetics. Volume 23, 1987, p 376
- Cooper: How we learn, how we remember: toward in understanding of brain and neural system. Selected papers of Leon Cooper. World Scientific 1995
- Cooper: Memories and memory - a physicists approach to the brain. In: International Journal of Modern Physics. Series A, Volume 15, 2000, p 4069
- Cooper et al: Theory of cortical plasticity. World Scientific 2004