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Death notice
Stanley Bashkin
20 June 1923 - 01 May 2007
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
Submitted by Alan Chodos
Published on 11 May 2007
Stanley Bashkin received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1944 (cum laude) and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1950. Following academic and research positions at Louisiana State University, the University of Iowa, California Institute of Technology and Australian National University, he joined the Physics faculty at the University of Arizona in 1962, where he served as a dedicated teacher and researcher throughout his career, until his retirement in 1995. Shortly after his arrival in 1962 he persuaded University president Richard Harvill to purchase a two million volt Van de Graaff accelerator to explore his new idea for atomic physics research called Beam Foil Spectroscopy. This new approach was very successful and led to an extensive federally-funded research program, also supported by NATO, involving an additional five million volt accelerator and many faculty, students and visitors over the next 30 years. A world-wide research effort in Beam Foil Spectroscopy ensued, with practitioners and colleagues found in Sweden, Germany, the U.K. and many other countries. To accommodate this expanded research program, in 1966 he designed and supervised the construction of a significant addition at the east end of the PAS building on the UA campus. A unique design element to fit the new Van de Graaff accelerator in its lab space was the use of an extremely heavy magnet, supported on a decommissioned Navy gun-mount, to rotate and direct the ion beam toward the different targets required for different kinds of experiments. Professor Bashkin was instrumental in establishing the University of Arizona as a first rate teaching and research university. He also served for a time as an Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences. He was a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.
Current comments and reminiscences on Stanley Bashkin:
I last saw Stan in 1958 when he was working at the University of Iowa smashing the atom. His Australian born wife was my wife's matron of honour when we were married in London. Stan was a generous host and keenly interested in Iowa's products. He proudly showed me some of Iowa's corn fields and stretched to show by his finger tips how high the corn was. It was a pleasant introduction to Mid West American life that has stayed with me all these years. I was sorry to hear recently that he had died.
Val Wake
Port Macquarie, AU
Stanley Bashkin deserved the Nobel Prize for his invention of beam‑foil spectroscopy. This technique was equal in importance to the bubble chamber, holography, and optical pumping, and other techiques in optical physics, all of which resulted in prizes. The absence of a prize for Stan, like that for John Wheeler, is like a tooth missing from a gear‑‑now and then, when we think of it, the history of physics simply has a jerk. However, together with hundreds of others, I remember Stan's work and honor it. Stan the Man was a gentle, friendly person, one of those who made you want to do well. He was a creative, inspiring scientist who deserves to be kept on the list of those who mattered.
Robert W. Schmieder
Walnut Creek, CA