A Nobel Legacy 1974 - 2005

William N. Lipscomb 1919- Chemistry 1976 Research on the structure of boranes, which has increased the understanding of chemical bonding Lipscomb had had quite a bit of experience by the time he elucidated the unusual chemical make-up of boron - off to college in 1937, he donated his elaborate chemistry set to his high school, doubling the school's chemistry inventory. The scientist, known for his clarinet playing and Western-style bow ties, describes his mode of reasoning: "I am inclined to make large intuitive jumps and then set about to test the conclusions." Lipscomb is the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry Emeritus.

John H. Van Vleck 1899-1980 Physics 1977 Pioneered the application of quantum mechanics to the study of magnetism Van Vleck, known for his love of the arts, his quietly piercing wit, and his intense loyalty to Harvard, made cutting-edge contributions to the fields of radioastronomy, microwave spectroscopy, and magnetic resonance. His application of quantum mechanics altered both physics and chemistry, deepening our understanding of atomic systems - from single molecules to crystalline solids.

Sheldon L. Glashow 1932- Physics 1979 Used mathematical hypotheses to explain electromagnetism and "weak" interactions - two of the four basic forces in nature - according to the same laws (with Steven Weinberg) Despite the fact that Glashow and co-winner Steven Weinberg attended Bronx High School of Science and Cornell University together, and remained friends through their Harvard years, they separately developed this stunning advance toward a unified field theory. Glashow was driven by a curiosity which many more modest homeowners would understand, saying about the universe, "It is intellectually vital to know what the place in which you live is made of." Glashow is Higgins Professor of Physics Emeritus.

Steven Weinberg 1933- Physics 1979 Used mathematical hypotheses to explain electromagnetism and "weak" interactions (with Sheldon L. Glashow) In addition to his primary task - that of elucidating the unity and simplicity underlying nature's apparent complexity - Weinberg's avocation is history, specifically medieval and military history. His interest in the subject goes way back: his book The First Three Minutes (1977) graphically recreates the birth of the universe. Weinberg, a colleague notes, is "dedicated but not driven. He even works with the television on." Weinberg holds the Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin.

Baruj Benacerraf 1920- Medicine or Physiology 1980 Discovered that disease-fighting ability is passed on genetically, although the immune-response gene varies from person to person Benacerraf's discovery has several dramatic applications, helping us to understand: 1) the body's ability to repel microbial invasions, 2) the mechanism by which the body accepts or rejects skin grafts or organ transplants, and 3) the growth of tumors, invaders that outwit or fool the body's defense system. Benacerraf is the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology Emeritus.

Walter Gilbert 1932- Chemistry 1980 Developed methods to work out the structure of DNA Gilbert discovered a rapid method to decode the base sequences in DNA and then apply this knowledge to induce bacteria to produce medically useful substances, such as insulin and interferon. In 1988, the physicist-turned-biologist called for the scientific community to engage in the "human genome project," a massive effort to chart, by the year 2000, the entire sequence of DNA that makes up our genetic material. Gilbert is Carl M. Loeb University Professor.

David Hubel 1926- Medicine 1981 Research on information-processing in the visual system (with Torsten Wiesel) In a partnership spanning decades, Hubel and Torsten Wiesel have provided the basis for our understanding of how the brain analyzes visual information. The pair describe their work as a 50-50 effort. Says Hubel, "It's been a real Gilbert and Sullivan sort of thing. Not that we would compare ourselves to those celestial people, but they did do different things and you wouldn't say one did more than the other." Hubel is John Franklin Enders University Professor of Neurobiology and Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows.

Torsten Wiesel 1924- Medicine 1981 Research on information-processing in the visual system (with David Hubel) When told he'd been awarded the Nobel Prize, Wiesel said, "Oh, no, I was afraid of that! I better go and hide." For Wiesel, what really counts is the research and its results, like improvements in the treatment of congenital cataracts and other blinding conditions found in children. Wiesel is President Emeritus of The Rockefeller University.

Nicolaas Bloembergen 1920- Physics 1981 Discovery of laser spectroscopy, whereby atoms can be studied with higher precision As a 26-year-old graduate student at Harvard, Bloembergen worked with Edward Purcell to develop the theory of nuclear magnetic resonance, for which Purcell was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize. Bloembergen's subsequent work with masers and lasers have found hugely diverse practical applications, from surgical operations to boring and cutting metal to the development of fiber optics. Bloembergen is Gerhard Gade University Professor Emeritus.

Carlo Rubbia 1934- Physics 1984 Discovery and investigation of new subatomic particles and their properties Rubbia has been the dynamic leading force in some of the most dazzling recent advances in physics, including the discovery of the sixth (or final) quark. Quarks are believed to be the fundamental constituent of which all particles are made. The flamboyant Rubbia has been characterized by fellow Harvard Nobelist Sheldon Glashow as "a wild man in the best tradition of wild men . . . emotional, ebullient, and full of life." Rubbia is the former Director-General of CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, in Geneva.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Bernard Lown, co-founder 1921- Peace 1985 Lown, a pioneer in research on sudden cardiac death, invented the defibrillator and introduced the drug Lidocaine, which controls disturbances of the heartbeat. Along with Evgueni Chazov of the Soviet Union, he enlisted physicians around the world to band together against nuclear war and nuclear arms proliferation. Head of the Lown Cardiovascular Center in Brookline, Mass., he has more recently explored "the social contract of doctoring," and has written a book on the subject, The Lost Art of Healing.

Dudley R. Herschbach 1932- Chemistry 1986 Developed techniques enabling scientists to see collisions taking place between pairs of molecules and detect the products of such collisions A die-hard Red Sox fan, Herschbach describes his research by pitching baseball metaphors. "Think of a crowd at a baseball game. In ordinary chemistry, you have to deal with the whole crowd at once. You observe the general behavior of a crowd of molecules but want to know more about individual molecules. In effect, what we've done is eavesdrop on conversations between molecules, as if listening to a pair of people in that crowd." Herschbach actively promotes the public appreciation and understanding of science, hosting a PBS special on the Nobel Prize, and even appearing in a commercial for Sears Roebuck stores.

Norman Ramsey 1915- Physics 1989 Research on separate oscillatory fields to make precise measurements of how various parts of atoms and molecules interact with each other "When I learned," said Ramsey about his vocation, "that you could make a living studying how nature operates, I knew that was what I wanted to do." Ramsey's explorations have had many applications: from his research on radar and the atomic bomb during World War II to the work which led to the invention of phenomenally accurate atomic clocks - devices that are able to operate for thousands of years without losing a second. Ramsey is Higgins Professor of Physics Emeritus.

Joseph E. Murray 1919- Medicine 1990 Developed new procedures for organ transplants (with E. Donnall Thomas, formerly of the University of Washington) The ambidextrous Murray, who performed the first successful human kidney transplant, is one of the few surgeon-scientists to win the Nobel. Although committed to his lab work, Murray's first concern has always been the patient. During World War II, doing reparative surgery, particularly with burns patients, Murray became intrigued by the dynamics of tissue rejection and acceptance, leading him to his interest in transplant surgery.

Elias J. Corey 1928- Chemistry 1990 Devised rules that allow scientists to make complex new molecules from ordinary chemicals Before Corey's work, organic chemists synthesized compounds through trial and error. Now they use his guidelines to build complex compounds. Fellow Harvard Nobelist Dudley Herschbach has said, "E.J. changed the whole way that chemistry is done . . . his syntheses are like great works of art. Like Beethoven, he takes the equivalent of simple notes and rhythms and puts them together into marvelous creative works." Corey is Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry.

Seamus Heaney 1939- Literature 1995 For poetic works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past Raised in a thatched farmstead in County Derry, Ireland, Heaney studied as a "scholarship boy," as his father called him, at Queens University in Belfast, where he began to write poems. In 1966 his collection Death of a Naturalist was published. In the nine volumes since, he has treated subjects ranging from farmwork to politics to the beauty of the Irish language. "I rhyme / to see myself, to set the darkness echoing." Heaney is the Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence.

Robert C. Merton 1944- Economics 1997 For a new method to determine the value of derivatives When Robert C. Merton was a graduate student in applied mathematics he had an unusual moonlighting job - he'd visit a local brokerage at 6:30 every morning and spend a few hours trading securities. Later, when he went to M.I.T. to study economics under Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson, it struck him that his early morning activity could be placed on a scholarly footing. "I realized that what I'd been doing could be a field of economics." And so it became. Since the 1960s, Merton has been researching the financial risk associated with derivatives, a financial instrument connected to a stock. Merton is the George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration.

Amartya Sen 1933- Economics 1998 Research on welfare economics Three million people died in India's 1943 Bengal famine. Witnessing it was 9-year-old Amartya Sen, who 55 years later won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on poverty and famine. Sen has made key contributions to the research on problems in welfare economics. Almost all of Sen's works deal with development economics, which is often devoted to the welfare of the poor. His work has improved the theoretical foundation for comparing different distributions of society's welfare and enhanced understanding of the economic mechanisms underlying famines.

A. Michael Spence 1943- Economics 2001 For analyses of markets with asymmetric information A. Michael Spence, Ph.D. '72, won for economic theories based on his Harvard doctoral thesis. Markets with asymmetric information happen when people on one side have much better information than those on the other: for instance, borrowers who know more about their repayment prospects than lenders, or Nobel Prize committee members who know who the winners are before anyone else does. When Spence chose his dissertation topic, he did it out of personal interest, not because he was trying to win prizes. In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, Spence said, "I can't imagine people making decisions [about what to study] on the basis of how much something would contribute to their winning a Nobel Prize or a John Bates Clark Medal (which Spence won in 1981). A large amount of winning such prizes is randomness. To win a Nobel you have to be a certified genius, which I am not, or lucky, which I have been. But you can't bet on it, so it doesn't enter into the decision-making. You spend so much time doing this, that if you don't enjoy what you are doing, it just wouldn't work." In addition to holding a number of professorial appointments at Harvard, Spence served as dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1984 to 1990. He is also a former dean at Stanford University, where he is currently the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus. Spence shared the Nobel Prize with George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Riccardo Giacconi 1931- Physics 2002 For pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Riccardo Giacconi with the prize because of his pioneering work with X-ray astronomy, including developing instruments to detect X-rays in space. He did much of this work while Associate Director of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Professor of Astronomy between 1973 and 1982. Giacconi contributed to the development of the Einstein X-ray Observatory, which was a great improvement over earlier X-ray telescopes because it provided sharper images and was stronger. He also initiatived the construction of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, known for its extraordinarily detailed images in X-rays. Giacconi shared the Nobel Prize with Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba.

Linda B. Buck 1947- Physiology or Medicine 2004 For discoveries of "odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system" Buck received the Nobel Prize for work relating to the sense of smell, which the Nobel committee noted had "long remained the most enigmatic of our senses. The basic principles for recognizing and remembering about 10,000 different odours were not understood." Buck and Richard Axel, with whom she shared the prize, published the fundamental paper describing odorant receptors in 1991. That year Buck became an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "The discoveries on the organization of the olfactory system that were cited by the Nobel Foundation were made over a period of 10 years, during which I was a faculty member at Harvard," she said. Since 2002, Buck has been at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Roy J. Glauber 1925- Physics 2005 "For his contribution  to the quantum theory of optical coherence" A friendly, unassuming man and a popular teacher, Glauber updated the theory of the nature of light from its origins in the 19th century to include modern quantum principles. He helped explain how light can travel in the form of quanta (particles) as well as rays or waves. As an undergraduate at Harvard, Glauber took graduate level math courses and worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb, before he graduated. He first worked at what he calls "routine" tasks, and then participated in the "calculations that were important in determining the critical mass (of explosives) and the efficiency of the explosion." Glauber has been tenured longer than any currently active member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, having received tenure on July 1, 1956. Despite his position at the apex of discovery, Glauber continues to teach the complex science to freshmen and to the public through a well-attended course at the Harvard Extension School. Glauber shared the prize with John L. Hall of the University of Colorado and Theodor W. Hansch of the Institute for Quantum Optics in Munich, Germany.

Thomas C. Schelling 1921- Economics 2005 "For having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis" In 1958, Schelling was appointed professor of economics at Harvard, but he spent his first year on leave working for the RAND Corp.  In 1960, Harvard University Press published what would become Schelling's best-known work, "The Strategy of Conflict," in which he used game theory to analyze international conflict, thereby encouraging the use of game theory throughout the social sciences. In 1969, Schelling became one of the "founding fathers" of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The Kennedy School annually bestows the Thomas C. Schelling Award for transformative work in public policy. Retiring from Harvard in 1990, Schelling became a professor at the University of Maryland. Schelling shared the 2005 Nobel in economics with Robert J. Aumann of Hebrew University.

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