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Willis Lamb

Willis Lamb
Lamb in 1955
Born
Willis Eugene Lamb Jr.

(1913-07-12)July 12, 1913
DiedMay 15, 2008(2008-05-15) (aged 94)
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Known forLamb shift
Lamb–Mössbauer factor
Laser Theory
Quantum Optics
AwardsNational Medal of Science (2000)
Einstein Prize for Laser Science (1982)
Guthrie Lecture (1958)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1955)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsUniversity of Arizona
University of Oxford
Yale University
Columbia University
Stanford University
Thesis I. On the Capture of Slow Neutrons in Hydrogenuous Substances, II. Electromagnetic Properties of Nuclear Systems  (1938)
Doctoral advisorJ. Robert Oppenheimer
Doctoral studentsBernard Feld (1945)
Robert Retherford (1947)
Norman Kroll (1948)
Theodore Maiman (1955)
Marlan Scully (1966)
Balázs László Győrffy (1966)

Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (/læm/; July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1955 "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum." The Nobel Committee that year awarded half the prize to Lamb and the other half to Polykarp Kusch, who won "for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron." Lamb was able to precisely determine a surprising shift in electron energies in a hydrogen atom (see Lamb shift). Lamb was a professor at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences.


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