Robert Coleman Richardson
Robert Coleman Richardson ( born June 26, 1937 in Washington, DC; † February 19, 2013 in Ithaca, New York ) was an American physicist. Together with David Morris Lee and Douglas Dean Osheroff he received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of superfluidity in helium -3 at very low temperatures ."
Life
Richardson completed his studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and in 1966 at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, PhD. As a postdoctoral fellow he was from 1966 to 1968 worked at Cornell University. He became professor of physics at the university in 1968, and since 1990 also in the position of director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics.
In superfluid liquids, the atoms lose their typical random motion, they are based coordinates; thus the liquid loses internal friction and displays non-classical effects. Today the superfluid phases of helium -3 are among the most thoroughly studied states of matter.
Richardson was a member of the National Science Board and the Executive Committee of the National Science Foundation ( NFS).
He was married and has one daughter.