Robert Hofstadter

Infobox_Scientist
name = Robert Hofstadter


imagesize = 180px
birth_date = birth date|1915|2|5|mf=y
birth_place = New York City, New York
death_date = death date and age|1990|11|17|1915|2|5
death_place =
nationality = United States
field = Physics
work_institutions = Stanford University
alma_mater = City College of New York
Princeton University
doctoral_advisor =
known_for = Electron scattering
Atomic nuclei
prizes = Nobel Prize in Physics (1961)

Robert Hofstadter (February 5, 1915 – November 17, 1990) was the winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his consequent discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons." [R. W. McAllister & Robert Hofstadter, "Elastic Scattering of 188 MeV Electrons from Proton and the Alpha Particle," "Physical Review", V102, p. 851 (1956).] [Robert Hofstadter, " [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1961/hofstadter-lecture.pdf The Electron Scattering Method & its Application to the Structure of Nuclei and Nucleons] ," Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942-1962, pp. 560-581, Elsevier Pub. Co., Amsterdam-London-New York (Dec 1961).]

Biography

Born in New York City, he entered City College of New York, and graduated with a B.S. degree magna cum laude in 1935 at the age of 20, and was awarded the Kenyon Prize in Mathematics and Physics. He also received a Charles A. Coffin Foundation Fellowship from the General Electric Company, which enabled him to attend graduate school at Princeton University, where he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1938. Hofstadter taught at Stanford University from 1950 to 1985. In his last few years he became interested in astrophysics and applied his knowledge of scintillators to the design of the EGRET gamma-ray telescope.

Hofstadter's Erdős number is 5. [ [http://www.oakland.edu/enp/erdpaths.html Some Famous People with Finite Erdös Numbers] ] He was the father of Pulitzer Prize-winner Douglas Hofstadter. [ [http://stills.nap.edu/html/biomems/rhofstadter.html National Academy of Sciences biography] ]

References