Michael Cohen (physicist)

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Michael Cohen
Born(1930-05-09)May 9, 1930
New York City, United States
DiedJune 30, 2024(2024-06-30) (aged 94)
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, United States
Education Cornell University (B.S.)
Caltech (PhD)
HonoursFellow of the American Physical Society
Scientific career
Fields Condensed matter physics
Institutions University of Pennsylvania
Aspen Center for Physics (co-founder)
Thesis The Energy Spectrum of the Excitations in Liquid Helium  (1956)
Doctoral advisor Richard Feynman

Michael Cohen (May 9, 1930-June 30, 2024) [1] was an American condensed matter physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked on theoretical understanding of liquid helium, ferroelectrics, and biological membranes using quantum mechanics. [2]

Contents

He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and co-founder and Honorary Trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics (ACP), described as a "utopia for physicists." [3]

Life

Michael Cohen was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1930. [1]

Cohen earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Cornell University in 1951. Under the supervision of Richard Feynman, with whom he published papers on the physics of liquid helium, [4] [5] [6] Cohen earned his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1956. Cohen held postdoctoral positions at Caltech and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton with J. Robert Oppenheimer [1] before joining the faculty in the department of physics at the University of Pennsylvania. [7]  Among the Ph.D. candidates whom Cohen supervised is the physicist Mark G. Kuzyk. [8] [ better source needed ] He also worked as a member of Penn’s faculty senate. [1]

Cohen organized problem-solving seminars for graduate students preparing for the Ph.D. qualifying exam. For this work he referred to himself as “the department’s Stanley Kaplan.” [1]

In 1960, the American Physical Society appointed him a fellow. [9] [10]

In 1962, Cohen worked with colleagues George Stranahan and Robert W. Craig to establish and raise funds for the Aspen Center for Physics to foster collaborative research among physicists from different sub-fields, independent of any one university or institution. Together they generated initial support from the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the Needmor Fund to finance the center's first building. [11] A historical retrospective of the ACP, written upon its fiftieth anniversary, suggested that Cohen's role in the center's establishment was that he "found the talent" – that is, drew in the physicists – for its early scientific programs. [12] In 1963 he recruited Hans Bethe into the institute. [1]

He became emeritus professor in 1998. [1]

He died in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania in 2024. [1]

Books

In 2011, Cohen completed a textbook entitled, Classical Mechanics: a Critical Introduction, in collaboration with fellow physicist Larry Gladney, who prepared the solutions manual. [13]

Mountain climbing

Cohen was also mountain climber. In 1963, with two other climbers, he completed the first ascent of the north face of Capitol Peak. [1] Also two rock-climbing routes near Aspen, Colorado are named after him: Cohen's Crown and Cohen's Last Problem. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Michael Cohen Obituary 2024". Cremation Society of Philadelphia.
  2. ↑ "Michael Cohen | Department of Physics and Astronomy". live-sas-physics.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  3. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (2001-08-28). "In Aspen, Physics on a High Plane". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  4. ↑ Cohen, Michael; Feynman, Richard P. (1957-07-01). "Theory of Inelastic Scattering of Cold Neutrons from Liquid Helium". Physical Review. 107 (1): 13–24. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.107.13. ISSN   0031-899X.
  5. ↑ Feynman, R. P.; Cohen, Michael (1956-06-01). "Energy Spectrum of the Excitations in Liquid Helium". Physical Review. 102 (5): 1189–1204. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.102.1189. ISSN   0031-899X.
  6. ↑ Feynman, R. P.; Cohen, Michael (September 1955). "The Character of the Roton State in Liquid Helium". Progress of Theoretical Physics. 14 (3): 261–263. doi: 10.1143/PTP.14.261 . ISSN   0033-068X.
  7. ↑ "Michael Cohen". Department of Physics and Astronomy. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  8. ↑ "Physics Tree - Michael Cohen". academictree.org. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  9. ↑ "Michael Cohen | Department of Physics and Astronomy". live-sas-physics.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  10. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  11. ↑ Stonington, Joel (2006-07-06). "Aspen's one-story ivory tower". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  12. ↑ Turner, Michael S. (2012-06-01). "Aspen physics turns 50". Nature. 486 (7403): 315–317. doi: 10.1038/486315a . ISSN   1476-4687.
  13. ↑ Cohen, Michael (2011). Classical Mechanics: a Critical Introduction (PDF). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy.
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