Spectroscopy With Coherent Radiation: Selected Papers of Norman F. Ramsey With Commentary (World Scientific Series in 20th Century Physics)
(This invaluable volume contains a biography of Nobel laur...)
This invaluable volume contains a biography of Nobel laureate Norman F Ramsey as well as reprints and retrospective commentaries on 56 papers relating to spectroscopy with coherent radiation. The earliest papers describe his work with I I Rabi, developing the then new magnetic resonance method and its uses to measure magnetic moments of the different forms of hydrogen and to discover the deuteron electric quadrupole moment. Later papers include his invention of the method of coherent separated oscillatory fields, the development of the atomic hydrogen maser and the uses of these methods to measure properties of nucleons, nuclei, atoms and molecules and to test parity and time reversal symmetries. Other papers present the first successful theories of nuclear magnetic shielding, NMR chemical shifts, electron-coupled nuclear spin-spin interactions and negative absolute temperatures.
Molecular Beams (International Series of Monographs on Physics)
(First published in 1956, this classic work by N.F. Ramsey...)
First published in 1956, this classic work by N.F. Ramsey, 1989 Nobel Laureate in Physics, provides an account of atomic and molecular structure. After an introductory section reviewing experimental apparatus and the kinds of quantities that can be measured, Ramsey provides comprehensive accounts of gas kinetics, chemical equilibria, and atomic and nuclear magnetic moments by nonresonance methods. He also provides tables of nuclear moments, as well as detailed accounts of nuclear and molecular interactions. Finally there are sections on atomic fine and hyperfine structure, and the design of experimental apparatus. The focus throughout is on the physics of beams composed of electrically neutral particles. As a seminal work by one of the world's leading scientists, this volume will interest students and researchers in a range of fields, including atomic physics, physical chemistry, spectroscopy, and biological chemistry.
Quick Calculus: A Self-Teaching Guide, 2nd Edition
(Quick Calculus 2nd Edition A Self-Teaching Guide Calculus...)
Quick Calculus 2nd Edition A Self-Teaching Guide Calculus is essential for understanding subjects ranging from physics and chemistry to economics and ecology. Nevertheless, countless students and others who need quantitative skills limit their futures by avoiding this subject like the plague. Maybe that's why the first edition of this self-teaching guide sold over 250,000 copies. Quick Calculus, Second Edition continues to teach the elementary techniques of differential and integral calculus quickly and painlessly. Your "calculus anxiety" will rapidly disappear as you work at your own pace on a series of carefully selected work problems. Each correct answer to a work problem leads to new material, while an incorrect response is followed by additional explanations and reviews. This updated edition incorporates the use of calculators and features more applications and examples. ".makes it possible for a person to delve into the mystery of calculus without being mystified." --Physics Teacher
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. was an American physicist who was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. A physics professor at Harvard University for most of his career, Ramsey also held several posts with such government and international agencies as NATO and the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
Background
Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. , was born in Washington, D. C. , on August 27, 1915. His father, a West Point graduate, was an officer in the Army Ordnance Corps, and, as is characteristic of life in the military, the Ramsey family moved frequently from place to place. Norman, a gifted student, benefited from these moves as he was twice advanced a grade when he enrolled in a new school.
Education
As a high school student in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Ramsey became interested in science and won a scholarship to the University of Kansas; however, his father was transferred to Governor's Island, New York, so Ramsey entered Columbia University at age 16 and graduated in 1935 with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics.
Ramsey majored in mathematics, but by the time he graduated from Columbia it was physics that aroused his curiosity. Thus, with a Kellett fellowship provided by Columbia University, Ramsey entered Cambridge University, England, as an undergraduate in physics. At that time the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge was a leading center of physics, and in this active environment it was an essay Ramsey wrote for his tutor that first stimulated his interest in molecular beams. When he obtained his second bachelor's degree, he returned to New York City in 1937 and joined I. I. Rabi's molecular beam group at Columbia University.
Career
It was an auspicious time to join Rabi's research group. In 1937 Rabi's molecular beam research had evolved to the point where the magnetic resonance method was about to break on the scene and Ramsey, the first graduate student to work with the new method, shared in the discovery of the quadrupole moment of the deuteron. In 1940 Ramsey received his Ph. D. from Columbia University for his studies of the rotational magnetic moments of molecules. Ramsey's Ph. D. came during the early years of World War II, and for the duration of the war he was involved in the war effort: first with the development of radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory (1940-1943) and later at Los Alamos with the Manhattan Project (1943-1945). When the war ended Ramsey returned to Columbia (1945-1947) and to molecular beam research. In 1947 he accepted a position at Harvard University where he founded an active research program in molecular beam physics, particle physics, and neutron-beam physics. By the time he retired as Higgins Professor of Physics in 1986, Ramsey had guided 84 graduate students through their theses research.
At Harvard, Ramsey began his own laboratory with the objective of carrying out accurate molecular beam magnetic resonance experiments. Plagued by difficulties in obtaining magnetic fields with sufficient homogeneity to achieve the desired accuracy, Ramsey created his separated-oscillatory-field method. In this method, the effective path length of the region in which quantum transitions of the beam particles are induced can be increased without maintaining a homogeneous magnetic field over the entire path length. This increase in path length means that beam particles spend more time in the resonance region, which results in a dramatic decrease in the width of the observed resonance peaks and, consequently, in increased precision. With the separated-oscillatory-field method, Ramsey and his students measured nuclear spins, nuclear magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments, rotational magnetic moments of molecules, spin-rotational interactions, spin-spin interactions, and electron distributions in molecules.
In Ramsey's molecular beam experiments, the time spent in the resonance region was determined by the spatial separation of the first and second oscillating fields. Ramsey's desire to increase still further this time factor and thereby to increase the precision of his magnetic resonance measurements led to the invention of the hydrogen maser in 1960. In this device, atoms of hydrogen were sent into an enclosure where they resided for approximately 10 seconds, which is 1, 000 times longer than the time spent in a typical molecular beam apparatus; thus the line widths were reduced by a factor of 1, 000. The hydrogen maser was used for extremely accurate measurements of the hyperfine separations of atomic hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium. Since its invention, the hydrogen maser has become one of the most accurate atomic clocks, and it has been used in applications ranging from sensitive tests of the theory of general relativity to the tracking of Voyager II in its encounter with Neptune.
Ramsey was primarily an experimental physicist; however, he was one of those rare physicists who was adept as both an experimentalist and a theoretician. In addition to developing theories of nuclear interactions in molecules that were directly related to his experimental work, Ramsey was the first to develop a successful theory of chemical shifts that has been central to the analysis of nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. He also published a paper providing the theory of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics at negative absolute temperatures.
In addition to his scientific work, Ramsey was an active leader in the world of physics. Together with Rabi, Ramsey initiated the discussions that led to the formation of the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, and he served as Brookhaven's first head of the Physics Department. On the 50th anniversary of the lab in 1995 he delivered the keynote speech. He held many administrative positions, including director of the Harvard Cyclotron; chairman of the MIT-Harvard committee in charge of the construction of the Cambridge electron accelerator; president of Universities Research Association, the governing body of Fermilab in Illinois; president of the American Physical Society; and chairman of the board of governors of the American Institute of Physics. Ramsey was also the first assistant secretary general for science in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where he initiated the NATO programs for advanced study institutes, fellowships, and research grants.
After his retirement from Harvard, Ramsey continued to receive recognition and honors for his contributions to physics and science. In 1995 he was selected by the National Science Board to receive the Vannevar Bush Award. That same year the country of Guyana issued a stamp in his honor. Ramsey actively supported the advancement of scientific research. He was one of sixty Nobel Prize winners signing a letter sent to President Clinton and Congress, on June 19, 1996, asking for increased federal funding to support university-based research.