John Bardeen

John Bardeen (May 23 1908 – January 30 1991) was an American physicist. He is the only person to have won two Nobel prizes in Physics, in 1956 for the transistor, along with William Bradford Shockley and Walter Brattain, and in 1972 for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity together with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer, now called BCS theory.

Early life and education

John Bardeen was born in Madison, Wisconsin to Charles and Althea Bardeen. Charles was a professor of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and helped start its medical school. Althea, before marrying, had taught at the Dewey Laboratory School and run an interior decorating business; after marriage she was an active figure in the art world.

Related Topics:
Madison - Wisconsin - University of Wisconsin-Madison - Dewey Laboratory School

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Bardeen's talent for mathematics was recognized early. His seventh grade mathematics teacher encouraged Bardeen in pursuing advanced work, and years later, Bardeen credited him for "first exciting interest in mathematics."http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309084083/html/28.html

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Bardeen graduated high school at age fifteen, even though he could have graduated several years earlier. His graduation was postponed due to taking additional courses at another high school and also partly because of his mother's death. He entered the University of Wisconsin in 1923.

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While in college he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. He raised the needed membership fees partly by playing billiards; he eventually became a billiards champion.

Related Topics:
Zeta Psi - Billiards

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Bardeen received his Bachelor's degree and Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1928. He had taken all the graduate courses in physics and mathematics that had interested him, and in fact, graduated in five years, one more than usual; this allowed him time to also complete a Master's thesis, supervised by Leo J. Peters. His mentors in mathematics were Warren Weaver and Edward Van Vleck. His main physics mentor was John Hasbrouck van Vleck, but he was also much influenced by visiting scholars such as Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, and Arnold Sommerfeld.

Related Topics:
Bachelor's degree - Master's degree - 1928 - Leo J. Peters - Warren Weaver - Edward Van Vleck - John Hasbrouck van Vleck - Paul Dirac - Werner Heisenberg - Arnold Sommerfeld

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Bardeen stayed on for some time at Wisconsin furthering his studies,but eventually went to work for three years at Gulf Research Laboratories, the research arm of the Gulf Oil Company, based in Pittsburgh. After the work failed to keep his interest, he applied and was accepted to the graduate program in mathematics at Princeton University.

Related Topics:
Gulf Research Laboratories - Gulf Oil - Princeton University

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Bardeen studied both mathematics and physics as a graduate student, ending up writing his thesis for the mathematical physics Ph.D. on a problem in solid-state physics, under Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1936. Due to his father's death in 1935, Bardeen was not able to finish his thesis before he went to Harvard University on a postdoctoral fellowship and had to finish it during his first term there.

Related Topics:
Thesis - Mathematical physics - Ph.D. - Eugene Wigner - 1936 - 1935

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While at Princeton, he met Jane Maxwell during a visit to his old friends in Pittsburgh. He would marry her before his time at Harvard had ended.

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