Norman Foster Ramsey, his research had important applications in the construction of the atomic clock

August 27, 1915, in Washington (United States) – November 4, 2011, in Boston (United States)

When he began studying at Columbia University, he did it in Engineering, he became interested in mathematics and changed to this specialty. However, when he received his bachelor's degree from him in 1935, he had already taken an interest in Physics. It was then that, in 1940, he obtained his doctorate in this subject.

Lhe Kellett Scholarship was awarded to study Physics at the famous Cavendish Laboratory with Lord Rutherford and Maurcie Goldhaber at Cambridge University. He met such great scientists as Edward Appleton, Max Born, Edward Bullard, James Chadwick, John Cockcroft, Paul Dirac, Arthur Eddington, Ralph Fowler, Mark Oliphant, and J.J. Thomson.

Ramsey wrote a final paper for Goldhaber on magnetic moments and for this he needed to study the investigations of Isidor Isaac Rabi. This generated in him an interest in molecular beams.

Rabi received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 and Ramsey was part of the team that led him to invent molecular beam resonance spectroscopy.

With the same team, Ramsey shared with Rabi and another scientist, Jerrold Zacharias, the discovery that the deuteron was a magnetic quadruple. This meant that the atomic nucleus was not spherical, as was thought.

He became a fellow at the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, where he studied neutron-proton and proton-helium scattering.

From 1947, he was a professor of Physics at Harvard University, although he also held positions in the government and international agencies such as NATO and the United States Atomic Energy Commission.

In 1989, he shared the Nobel Prize with Hans Georg Dehmelt and Wolfgang Paul for his separate oscillatory field method which has important applications for the construction of the atomic clock.

What is an atomic clock? Find out by clicking.

In addition, he helped create the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratories and Fermilab.

In the race there is a long etc. of discoveries, contributions to the Manhattan Project and many other projects. If you want to know more, click on: Norman Foster Ramsey, Timekeeper of the Atom