Michael Cohen (physicist)

Last updated
Michael Cohen
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 is an American condensed matter physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. His work investigates liquid helium, ferroelectrics, and biological membranes using quantum mechanics. [1]

Contents

He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and co-founder of the Aspen Center for Physics (ACP), described as a "utopia for physicists," [2] for which he remains an Honorary Trustee.

Life

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, [3] [4] [5] 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 before joining the faculty in the department of physics at the University of Pennsylvania. [6]  Among the Ph.D. candidates whom Cohen supervised is the physicist Mark G. Kuzyk. [7] [ better source needed ] In 1960, the American Physical Society appointed him a Fellow. [8] [9]

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. [10] 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. [11]

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. [12]

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References

  1. ↑ "Michael Cohen | Department of Physics and Astronomy". live-sas-physics.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  2. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (2001-08-28). "In Aspen, Physics on a High Plane". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ 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.
  6. ↑ "Michael Cohen". Department of Physics and Astronomy. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  7. ↑ "Physics Tree - Michael Cohen". academictree.org. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  8. ↑ "Michael Cohen | Department of Physics and Astronomy". live-sas-physics.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-06.
  9. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  10. ↑ Stonington, Joel (2006-07-06). "Aspen's one-story ivory tower". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  11. ↑ Turner, Michael S. (2012-06-01). "Aspen physics turns 50". Nature. 486 (7403): 315–317. doi: 10.1038/486315a . ISSN   1476-4687.
  12. ↑ Cohen, Michael (2011). Classical Mechanics: a Critical Introduction (PDF). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy.
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