Marshall Rosenbluth

Marshall Nicholas Rosenbluth ( born February 5, 1927 in Albany, † 28 September 2003 in San Diego ) was an American physicist who had a leading position in theoretical plasma physics.

Life and work

Rosenbluth studied at Harvard University, but served during the study in 1944 as a volunteer in the U.S. Navy. After retiring from the military, he completed his studies in 1946. 1949 doctorate Rosenbluth at the University of Chicago on a theme from the high energy physics, his doctor father was Edward Teller. 1949/50, he was at Stanford, where he developed the Rosenbluth formula for the elastic scattering of electrons on protons.

From 1950 to 1956 Rosenbluth worked under the direction of Edward Teller at Los Alamos National Laboratory on the hydrogen bomb. In 1953 he was there involved in the development of the Metropolis algorithm.

Since 1956, Rosenbluth concerned with plasma physics. He worked at General Atomics in San Diego. In 1960 he was at the newly founded University of San Diego professor of plasma physics. In 1965, he led the Russians Roald Sagdeev an international workshop for Plasma Theory at ICTP in Trieste, who was also particularly important for contacts between Russian and American scientists. In 1967, he moved to Princeton, where he conducted research at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and and taught at the university. From 1980 to 1987 he was director of the Institute for Fusion Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He then returned to General Atomic and at the University of San Diego, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. After the retirement he was until 1999 Chief Scientist in the planning team of the ITER.

Rosenbluth examined particularly plasma instabilities and has been in this field to become a leading theorist. He also dealt with the theory of free-electron laser.

Rosenbluth was married twice and had four children from his first marriage. He died in 2003 from pancreatic cancer.

Honors

Rosenbluth was a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1969. He also sat in the Fusion Energy Special Advisory Committee of the Department of Energy and was a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group.