Only Physics Today subscribers who have registered (free) on our website may submit a death notice.
Death notice
Willis E. Lamb Jr
University of Arizona
12 July 1913 - 15 May 2008
Tucson, AZ
Submitted by Physics Today Editorial Staff
Published on 20 May 2008
>
Current comments and reminiscences on Willis E. Lamb Jr:
Willis E. Lamb Jr., 94; Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist
The Washington Post
Willis Lamb
The Guardian
Students of quantum mechanics and the quantum theory of measurement who have not studied Prof. Willis Lamb's major contributions to the interpretation of quantum mechanics can do themselves an enormous favor by reading his book entitled "The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," edited and annotated by Jagdish Mehra (Rinton Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001). ISBN 1‑58949‑005‑3
Michael A. Stroscio
Wilmette, Illinois
I was a newly minted PhD in atomic physics when I visited Yale to interview for a post‑doc with Vernon Hughes. I was nervous, of course, wet behind the ears, and already shaking at the prospect of giving a seminar to Hughes and his group. But when Hughes' secretary told me that he had been called to an emergency meeting of the Brookhaven Labs oversight committee, I was quite annoyed ‑ all this way to be fobbed off on some underling?
And then the secretary told me who the underling was: "Professor Lamb will act as your host today ‑ I hope that's OK?"
Total panic. I revered Lamb; all of us young atomic physicists had studied his papers on the Lamb shift and all of us were awed by the work. He was going to listen to my idiotic talk, was going to judge my fitness to join the Yale staff? The only thing for me to do was to find the tallest building in the vicinity, precipitate myself from its roof, and save everyone time.
But Lamb couldn't have been more calming. After talking with me, having me shown around the various projects in the group, he took me to a low‑key and very pleasant lunch with some of the younger group members. The atmosphere was so low‑key, so informally collegial, that I was as close to being relaxed as I could be at the start of my talk to the atomic physics group.
And all went well until the question period. After a few softballs about experimental technique that I fielded easily, a smirking post‑doc at the back of the room asked me, "Your assumption on equilibrium of your sample ‑ doesn't that violate the Boltzman H‑theorem?"
I was stunned. I'm sure my mouth was hanging open. The Boltzman H‑theorem? Ohmigod. I was shown up for the total ignoramus that I am.
But before I could do more than panic totally and start shaking, Lamb spoke up from the front row. Without turning around to face the questioner, he shook his head slowly, and said, "I don't know what that question means, but I'm quite certain that the assumption doesn't violate anything."
The post‑doc wilted visibly. And I learned that kindness complimented achievement and position. For the rest of my years in physics I tried to remember that lesson.
Lamb the physicist needs no praise from me, but Lamb the man has been a model for me since that day.
Alan Ramsey
Skillman, NJ