- Herman Feshbach
Herman Feshbach (born in 1917 in
New York City — died22 December 2000 inCambridge, Massachusetts ) was an American physicist. He was an Institute Professor Emeritus of physics atMIT . Feshbach is best known forFeshbach resonance and for writing, withPhilip M. Morse , "Methods of Theoretical Physics".Background
Feshbach was born in
New York City and graduated from theCity College of New York in 1937. He then went on to receive his Ph.D. inphysics fromMIT in 1942.Career
Feshbach was invited to stay at MIT after he received his doctorate. He remained on the physics faculty for over fifty years. From 1967 to 1973, he was the director of MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics, and from 1973 to 1983, he was chairman of the physics department. In 1983, Feshbach was named as an Institute Professor, the highest faculty honor at MIT.
Activism
Prof. Feshbach was active in the
nuclear disarmament movement and was a founder and first chairman of theUnion of Concerned Scientists . In 1969, he participated in a protest against military research at MIT.He became concerned about the condition of scientists behind the
Iron Curtain , and worked to establish contacts between Western scientists and theirEastern Bloc counterparts. Prof. Feshbach also championed the cause ofAndrei Sakharov and other Sovietrefuseniks . He first met Sakharov in the mid-1970s; Feshbach wrote about meeting Sakharov after his release from internal exile, in an article that appeared inPhysics Today .Prof. Feshbach was a strong believer in equality of opportunity, especially within the scientific community. He worked to increase the number of women and minority members in both the physics department and at MIT in general. In the early 1990s, he was chairman of the MIT faculty's Equal Opportunity Committee, which made recommendations for recruiting and hiring more women and minority faculty members.
Death
Feshbach died of heart failure at Youville Hospital in Cambridge. He was 83.
Awards and honors
Feshbach joined the National Academy of Sciences in 1969 and was president of the
American Physical Society from 1980 to 1981. From 1982 to 1986, he was president of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1986, Feshbach was awarded theNational Medal of Science .In 1984, the physics department honored Feshbach for his decades of service by starting the annual Herman Feshbach Lectures. The physics department also has an endowed Herman Feshbach chair, established in 1999 to support theoretical physicists. It is currently held by
Frank Wilczek .Books
* cite book
first=Herman
last=Feshbach
coauthor=Philip Morse
year=1953
title=Methods of Theoretical Physics
publisher=Cambridge University Press* cite book
first=Herman
last=Feshbach
coauthors=Amos deShalit
title=Theoretical Nuclear Physicsee also
*
MIT Physics Department
*Feshbach resonance
*Feshbach–Fano partitioning External links
* [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2000/feshbach.html Obituary of Herman Feshbach from the MIT News Office]
* [http://feshbachpublishing.com Feshbach Publishing]
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