Willis E. Lamb Jr (1913-2008)

摘要

Willis Lamb, who died on 15 May aged 94, received his highest recognition in 1955, when he was awarded one half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the subtle quantum-mechanical shift in energy levels of the hydrogen atom that now bears his name. But in truth, he might have been nominated twice more. He produced a theory of the resonant absorption of γ-rays by solid-state atoms-the Moeβbauer effect -19 years before Rudolf Moeβbauer himself published the observations that won him a share of the 1961 prize. And in the early 1960s, Lamb developed one of the first, semi-classical theories ot how lasers work.