Lyman Spitzer

Lyman Spitzer
Born	June 26, 1914(1914-06-26) Toledo, Ohio, USA
Died	March 31, 1997(1997-03-31) (aged 82) Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Nationality	American
Fields	Theoretical physics
Alma mater	Phillips Academy Princeton University (Ph.D.) Yale University (B.A.)
Known for	Research in star formation and plasma physics Promotion of space telescopes
Notable awards	Henry Draper Medal (1974) National Medal of Science (1979) Crafoord Prize (1985)

Lyman Strong Spitzer, Jr. (June 26, 1914 – March 31, 1997) was an American theoretical physicist and astronomer best known for his research in star formation, plasma physics, and in 1946, for conceiving the idea of telescopes operating in outer space. Spitzer invented the stellarator plasma device and is the namesake of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Early life and education

Spitzer was born in Toledo, Ohio, and graduated from Scott High School. He then attended Phillips Academy in 1929 and went on to Yale College, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1935 and was a member of Skull and Bones. During a year of study at Cambridge University, he was influenced by Arthur Eddington and the young Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Returning to the U.S., Spitzer earned his MA from Princeton University in 1937 and his PhD in 1939, under the direction of Henry Norris Russell.

Career

Spitzer's brief time as a faculty member at Yale was interrupted by his wartime work on the development of sonar. In 1947, at the age of 33, he succeeded Russell as director of Princeton University Observatory, an institution that, virtually jointly with his contemporary Martin Schwarzschild, he continued to head until 1979.

Spitzer's research centered on the interstellar medium, to which he brought a deep understanding of plasma physics. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was among the first to recognize star formation as an ongoing contemporary process. His monographs, "Diffuse Matter in Space" (1968) and "Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium" (1978) consolidated decades of work, and themselves became the standard texts for some decades more.

Spitzer was the founding director of Project Matterhorn, Princeton University's pioneering program in controlled thermonuclear research, renamed in 1961 as Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was an early proponent of space optical astronomy in general, and in particular of the project that became Hubble Space Telescope.

Death

Spitzer died suddenly on March 31, 1997 after having completed a regular working day at Princeton University. He was survived by wife Doreen Canaday Spitzer, four children, and ten grandchildren. Among Spitzer's four children is neurobiologist Nicholas C. Spitzer, who is currently the professor and vice chair in neurobiology at UC San Diego.

Honors

Awards

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1953)
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1953)
• Bruce Medal (1973)
• Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1974)
• James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1975)
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1978)
• National Medal of Science (1979)
• Franklin Medal (1980)
• Prix Jules Janssen of the French Astronomical Society (1980)
• Crafoord Prize (1985)

Named after him

• Asteroid 2160 Spitzer
• Spitzer Space Telescope
• Lyman Spitzer Library in Davenport College, Yale University
• Lyman Spitzer Building at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ
• Answer to the final question on NTN Buzztime's Showdown on September 16, 2008.

External links

• NASA biography
• Papers by Lyman Spitzer at the Princeton University Library
• Oral History interview transcript with Lyman Spitzer 15 March 1978, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Oral History interview transcript with Lyman Spitzer 27 November 1991, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences