Leon Cooper

Last updated
Leon N. Cooper
Nobel Laureate Leon Cooper in 2007.jpg
Cooper in 2007
Born (1930-02-28) February 28, 1930 (age 93)
Alma mater Columbia University (BA 1951, MA 1953, PhD 1954)
Known for Cooper pairs
BCM theory
BCS theory
Awards John Jay Award (1985)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1972)
Comstock Prize in Physics (1968)
Scientific career
Fields Physics
Institutions Brown University
Doctoral advisor Robert Serber

Leon N. Cooper [1] (born February 28, 1930) is an American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate who, with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer, developed the BCS theory of superconductivity. [2] [3] His name is also associated with the Cooper pair and co-developer of the BCM theory of synaptic plasticity. [4]

Contents

Biography and career

Cooper's mother is Jewish. [5] Cooper graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1947 [6] [7] and received a BA in 1951, [8] MA in 1953, [8] and PhD in 1954 from Columbia University. [8] [9] He spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study and taught at the University of Illinois and Ohio State University before coming to Brown University in 1958. [9] He has been the Thomas J. Watson Sr. Professor of Science at Brown since 1974, and director of the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems which he founded in 1973. [8] Along with colleague Charles Elbaum, he founded the tech company Nestor, dedicated to finding commercial applications for artificial neural networks. [10] Nestor, along with Intel, developed the Ni1000 neural network computer chip in 1994. [11]

Cooper with his wife, Kay Allard, in 1972 Leon Cooper with wife 1972.jpg
Cooper with his wife, Kay Allard, in 1972

In 1969 Cooper married Kay Allard. They have two children. [12]

He has carried out research at various institutions including the Institute for Advanced Study and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The character Sheldon Cooper, featured in the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory , is named in part after Leon Cooper. [13]

Memberships and honors

Publications

Cooper is the author of Science and Human Experience – a collection of essays, including previously unpublished material, on issues such as consciousness and the structure of space. (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Cooper is the author of an unconventional liberal-arts physics textbook, originally An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics (Harper and Row, 1968) [15] and still in print in a somewhat condensed form as Physics: Structure and Meaning (Lebanon: New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1992).

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BCS theory</span> Microscopic theory of superconductivity

BCS theory or Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a condensation of Cooper pairs. The theory is also used in nuclear physics to describe the pairing interaction between nucleons in an atomic nucleus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Bardeen</span> American physicist and engineer (1908–1991)

John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon N. Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as the BCS theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Superconductivity</span> Electrical conductivity with exactly zero resistance

Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases gradually as its temperature is lowered, even down to near absolute zero, a superconductor has a characteristic critical temperature below which the resistance drops abruptly to zero. An electric current through a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source.

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In condensed matter physics, a Cooper pair or BCS pair is a pair of electrons bound together at low temperatures in a certain manner first described in 1956 by American physicist Leon Cooper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Robert Schrieffer</span> American physicist (1931–2019)

John Robert Schrieffer was an American physicist who, with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper, was a recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the BCS theory, the first successful quantum theory of superconductivity.

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Ivar Giaever is a Norwegian-American engineer and physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Leo Esaki and Brian Josephson "for their discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in solids". Giaever's share of the prize was specifically for his "experimental discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in superconductors".

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Kenneth Geddes "Ken" Wilson was an American theoretical physicist and a pioneer in leveraging computers for studying particle physics. He was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on phase transitions—illuminating the subtle essence of phenomena like melting ice and emerging magnetism. It was embodied in his fundamental work on the renormalization group.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of superconductivity</span>

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William Allan Bardeen is an American theoretical physicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He is the son of John Bardeen and Jane Maxwell Bardeen.

<i>BCS: 50 Years</i> Book by Leon Cooper

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References

  1. Many printed materials, including the Nobel Prize website, have referred to Cooper as "Leon Neil Cooper". However, the middle initial N does not stand for Neil, or for any other name. The correct form of the name is, thus, "Leon N Cooper", with no abbreviation dots[ citation needed ]
  2. "Superconductivity". CERN official website. CERN. 21 July 2023.
  3. Weinberg, Steven (February 2008). "From BSC to the LHC". CERN Courier. 48 (1): 17–21.
  4. Bienenstock, Elie (1982). "Theory for the development of neuron selectivity: orientation specificity and binocular interaction in visual cortex". The Journal of Neuroscience. 2 (1): 32–48. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.02-01-00032.1982. PMC   6564292 . PMID   7054394.
  5. "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Physics". www.jinfo.org. Retrieved 2023-03-29.
  6. "Bronx Science Honored as Historic Physics Site by the American Physical Society". bxscience.edu. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  7. MacDonald, Kerri (15 October 2010). "A Nobel Laureate Returns Home to Bronx Science". The New York Times . Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Leon Cooper". research.brown.edu. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  9. 1 2 Vanderkam, Laura (15 July 2008). "From Biology to Physics and Back Again: Leon Cooper". Scientific American . Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  10. Johnson, Colin (October 17, 1988). "Neural Network Startups Proliferate Across The U.S." The Scientist. 2 (19). Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  11. "Nestor's neural chip destiny now in its own hands". Tech Monitor. April 14, 1994. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  12. Carey, Charles W. (2014). American Scientists. Infobase Publishing. p. 66. ISBN   978-1-4381-0807-0.
  13. The Big Bang Theory, la fórmula perfecta del humor. lavoz.com.ar (October 31, 2010)
  14. "Comstock Prize in Physics". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 2010-12-29.
  15. Cushing, James T. (1978). "Review of An Introduction to the Meaning and Structure of Physics by Leon N. Cooper". American Journal of Physics. 46 (1): 114–115. Bibcode:1978AmJPh..46..114C. doi:10.1119/1.11116.