[HN Gopher] Engineer Who Won the Nobel Prize Twice in Physics
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Engineer Who Won the Nobel Prize Twice in Physics
Author : Anon84
Score : 139 points
Date : 2021-05-10 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wondersofphysics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wondersofphysics.com)
| psahgal wrote:
| The Engineering Quad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
| Champaign is also named "Bardeen Quad" in John Bardeen's honor.
|
| I haven't been back to my alma mater in a while, so my memory may
| be fuzzy, but I remember there was a plaque on the southwest end
| of the quad commemorating his achievements. I hope it's still
| there!
|
| When I was taking my introduction to semiconductors class in
| junior year, I thought it was pretty cool that we were studying a
| subject that one of the university's professors helped invent.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| At one time, one of the classrooms in the Everitt Lab had a
| plaque noting that it was the site of the first university
| lecture on transistors, ever. I assume it's still there, though
| I haven't been back to the U of I for a while myself.
|
| I never met Prof. Bardeen, but those I know who did said he was
| one of the nicest and most modest, unassuming guys you'd ever
| want to meet.
|
| Edit:
|
| An acquaintance of mine was a librarian at the U of I.
| According to her, even after he retired, he'd come into the
| Grainger Engineering Library a few times a week to catch up on
| the latest journals. She said he was always super-nice and
| polite to the staff. I believe she said he generally just wore
| a flannel shirt and jeans.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Calling someone who got a PhD in Mathematical Physics from
| Princeton an "engineer" is a bit rich. Yes, his undergrad degree
| was in engineering, but we don't call Ed Witten a "historian"
| because his undergrad degree was in history, most people would
| focus on the PhD and years spent as a tenured professor in
| Physics at various universities and research institutes.
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| I remember a class I took when I was studying for my BSEE. It had
| to do with the necessity of maintaining a lab notebook, of
| filling it out properly, and making sure to sign and date
| entries. The purpose was to maintain a documented history showing
| how efforts in the lab led from some basic principals to a
| patentable invention. The example was a few pages taken from
| Bardeen's notebook at the point where they finally were able to
| create a working transistor. Who knows when your work is going to
| change the world!
| timdellinger wrote:
| For what it's worth: US patent law has now changed. The law is
| no longer "first in invent", it's now "first to file".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_inv...
| cuspycode wrote:
| Alfred Nobel's will states that the prize should go to "those
| who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest
| benefit to humankind." The part about the preceding year didn't
| work out very well, but when it comes to conferring the greatest
| benefit to mankind, John Bardeen certainly made the grade. Twice.
|
| It doesn't really matter whether he should be primarily
| categorized as an engineer or a physicist or anything else.
| airhead969 wrote:
| I had a physics for engineers ( irony! ) course lecturer at De
| Anza College who worked at Bell Labs at the time on the
| transistor project.
|
| Oh yeah, that was the time when I used my HP 48G as a universal
| remote to turn on all 6 TVs in the lecture hall and people
| freaked out. }:)
| yborg wrote:
| I'd say this characterization is questionable at best. He worked
| as an engineer for 4 years and then got a Ph.D. in Physics, as
| well as working the majority of his life as a physics researcher
| and teacher. It's like calling a surgeon with an undergraduate
| degree in Biology a "biologist'.
| cosmojg wrote:
| Wait, why are these things mutually exclusive? He was both a
| physicist and an engineer! He literally used his knowledge of
| physics to physically engineer novel devices.
|
| As for your surgeon example, I sure as hell hope my surgeon
| identifies as a biologist. If someone's slicing me open, they
| better be up-to-date and involved with the literature. (To your
| point, after speaking to my fair share of medical doctors, it
| seems a frightening few actually do this.)
| mjfl wrote:
| Well there's also the fact that the transistor is an applied
| physics device and not really the discovery of any new
| fundamental force or particle. Which some would (wrongly, in my
| opinion) consider engineering.
| williesleg wrote:
| Nobel prizes are shit. Remember Obama?
| jollybean wrote:
| Lucent, AT&T etc. are like NASA in their failure to use these
| amazing achievements as part of their popular story/narrative.
| Imagine if the Nike marketing agency had, instead of 'shoes',
| literally 'space' to work with? It would be like crack for an
| agency creative. They would make 'Avengers' quality stuff.
| gumby wrote:
| They pushed the narrative _very_ heavily before the breakup. As
| a regulated monopoly, lobbying the public was an important
| function.
| gumby wrote:
| what a very strange message to vote down. You can see any
| number of pre breakup publicity videos touting their
| contribution to society on Youtube and any history of the
| Bell system will discuss this topic. The topic itself is not
| in any way controversial.
| JackFr wrote:
| IBM, at this point largely a purveyor of 2nd tier enterprise
| consulting, has an entire advertising narrative that they have
| been coasting on for decades.
| Crazyontap wrote:
| > Their relationship, however, soured when Shockley tried to take
| most of the credit for the invention.
|
| The article mentions BBT and one the constant jokes on it is
| whose name goes first and who gets the most credit. Guess some
| scientists really are that way! :)
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Wikipedia lists him as a Physicist though, so someone forgot to
| sneak in a few edits before publishing their article...
|
| Anyway, the ultimate "engineering" Physics Nobel prize remains
| with Nils Gustaf Dalen, who got it for inventing an automatic
| valve. But probably really got it for being a good friend that
| had his face blown up in an accident shortly before the winner
| was to be announced.
| qart wrote:
| Fields of study often have very hazy demarcations. Venki
| Ramakrishnan got a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, something he finds
| quite amusing because he has never worked on chemistry. He
| spends a bit of time explaining his background and his
| amusement in his book, "Gene Machine".
| blululu wrote:
| In fairness he did have a PhD in mathematical physics so
| characterizing him as an engineer instead of a physicist is not
| quite accurate. That said people in academia routinely downplay
| the qualifications and abilities of people who work in
| industry. It's not hard to imagine colleagues dismissing his
| work as mere engineering and not real science before he won the
| Nobel prize. Perhaps calling him an engineer is fair in light
| of such practices.
| panda-giddiness wrote:
| Before obtaining his Nobel prizes, he first obtained his PhD in
| physics (under Eugene Wigner, no less).
|
| That said, Bardeen taught as a professor of electrical
| engineering and as a professor of physics at the University of
| Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1951-1975, so I think it's
| fair to call him both.
| perl4ever wrote:
| >under Eugene Wigner, no less
|
| So you could say he was...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend ?
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Britannica lists him[0] as physicist as well.
|
| [0]: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Bardeen
| BeetleB wrote:
| His Bachelor's and Master's were in Electrical Engineering.
| amelius wrote:
| I'd say that the big enabling invention was the PN junction
| diode. From an application point of view it wasn't as important
| as a transistor of course, but from a theoretical perspective it
| was a much bigger leap than from diode to transistor. Most texts
| on semiconductor physics spend much more time explaining the PN
| junction than explaining transistors.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Bardeen was an amazing guy. I love this quote from his Wikipedia
| article in particular:
|
| "Bardeen was a scientist with a very unassuming personality.
| While he served as a professor for almost 40 years at the
| University of Illinois, he was best remembered by neighbors for
| hosting cookouts where he would prepare food for his friends,
| many of whom were unaware of his accomplishments at the
| university."
|
| Something about a man whose accomplishments have given us
| computers and the MRI being a friendly neighborhood dad, whose
| neighbors weren't even aware their hamburgers were being cooked
| by a man who had changed the course of human civilization, is so
| appealing to me.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| I'm probably getting the exact details wrong, however: I once
| read that he had a golf partner for over 30 years, and this
| golf partner only learned that Bardeen had two Nobels after
| Bardeen had died.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| IDK, his just seems normal to me. Why would your Nobels come
| up during golf unless you were trying to work it in. Which is
| pretty classless.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Maybe over ONE round of 18, but winning the world's most
| prestigious prize, twice, for your work never coming up in
| 30 years? Frankly, that's quite amazing.
| saeranv wrote:
| I feel like it would take superhuman restraint to not work
| it in once during 30 years though. If it were me I'd never
| shut about it.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| If I won _a_ Nobel, let alone _two_ I wouldn 't make it
| through more than a month of knowing someone without
| mentioning it. That's...probably among the many things that
| separate me from Nobel candidates. Only the mediocre feel
| they have something to prove.
| j7ake wrote:
| I think it is appealing because it is in such stark contrast to
| today's culture of constant self promotion and exaggeration of
| mediocre achievements.
| salimmadjd wrote:
| IMO this is what causing this huge self-promotion trend.
|
| 1 - it's become so much easier and accessible, with twitter,
| blog, FB, IG, YT.
|
| 2 - your ability to promote yourself has great impact in your
| financial and career growth.
|
| 3 - EGO. Remember when you were the smartest kid in your high
| school and then went to university and realized, there are
| many smart people like you.
|
| SV, is the next step above. Everyone thinks they're the next
| Steve Jobs, Musk, etc. until the start working with other
| smart peers.
|
| You were once the smart kid in the family, high school, your
| university classes, etc. Then you come to SV and realize wow,
| so many other smart people here. I'm just another average
| guy/gal who was in my top 1% of my college or high school.
| Some of these peers are even more driven than me and they're
| great hustlers.
|
| So you either accept that you're not so special, or you try
| to out hustle others for recognition.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Self-esteem movement of phony over-confidence, crumbling
| under pressure, and no depth of knowledge.
| vkou wrote:
| Self-promotion and exaggeration of mediocre achievements as
| the path to success has been around since time immemorial. If
| you can't do, talk.
|
| Julius Caesar didn't become dictator for life by doing a
| great job repressing the Gauls. He became dictator for life
| by doing a great job of _talking_ about how bad-ass the Gauls
| were, and how hard he had to work to repress them.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| Yup. Napoleon was also a terrific writer who carried a
| printing press with him as a (just another) General in
| Italy to be sure his first-hand heavily spun reports of his
| fighting prowess were the first French citizens would see.
| Of course, we see more of this now, in a mass civic rather
| than rural society.
| adolph wrote:
| Some to better effect than others.
|
| _"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal
| says with a laugh. "Who's that?"_
|
| _"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite
| Me?"_
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-
| runa...
| kaesar14 wrote:
| I suppose in the case of Caesar, one must be able to talk
| and do - if we consider his narrative as mostly grounded in
| fact, which I do.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| If you can do, also talk. I'd like to find out!
| kccqzy wrote:
| I used to be a much humbler person, especially in college,
| when I witnessed people much more capable than I.
|
| Once I entered the workforce I became less humble and self-
| promoted a lot more. I think this is because how performance
| evaluation and job promotion works at my employer and similar
| employers: people doing a lot of great work but without self-
| promotion are given lower ratings and passed over for
| promotions.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > today's culture
|
| Not a historian but I strongly suspect self-promotion is not
| something new.
| csunbird wrote:
| Agreed, but also internet basically gave everyone a
| megaphone, so that they can shout their mediocre
| achievements.
| lumost wrote:
| The world has also become more top heavy than a few
| decades ago. Competition for the top x% of a field has
| likely become fiercer as the alternative has become less
| self-sustaining.
| abartl wrote:
| There is nothing wrong with being mediocre.
| MegaButts wrote:
| There is also nothing good with being mediocre.
| nmz wrote:
| There's a lot of good with being mediocre. normalcy, so
| long as you're not in some sort of barbarian culture. is
| a net positive.
| enobrev wrote:
| It's almost as if being mediocre is fairly mediocre
| kkylin wrote:
| Just compare Bardeen to Shockley.
| harveywi wrote:
| When Bill Gates had his neighbors over for breakfast, I wonder
| if they were aware that their pancakes were being sorted by a
| man who had changed the course of human civilization.
| ffhhj wrote:
| > a man who had changed the course of human civilization.
|
| He learned how to do self-promotion from his friend Steve
| Jobs.
| ruggeri wrote:
| A reference to the famous result of Papadimitriou and Gates,
| of course.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20070610154429/http://www.cs.ber.
| ..
| lovelyviking wrote:
| > is so appealing to me.
|
| So what is so appealing? Isn't it shows that people are so
| indifferent and ignorant that they couldn't even spot a Nobel
| prize winner just because they did not care enough to ask?
|
| What if his success or life would be dependent on their
| recognition? He would probably die unnoticed ... It's very sad
| story I would say.
|
| Reading this actually should convince even the most modest
| person in the world to promote himself like hell ...
|
| Actually I think I also should promote myself from now on
| because people would simply not notice any of my talents and
| thus many opportunities to do great things can be lost. I think
| it was a great mistake every time I was modest about own
| talents and abilities.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Do you go around asking people if they've won a Nobel Prize?
|
| Really, what's appealing here is living modestly in a time
| before it was so easy to find out who someone was by typing
| their name into a search bar. Bardeen did his work out of a
| genuine drive for scientific discovery, not the pursuit of
| wealth or fame. That's what that anecdote shows me and what
| appeals to me about him.
|
| I'm sure Bardeen was not sweating about his "legacy" after
| winning a Nobel Prize, lol.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Uh I think this depends on the context. In your work you must
| absolutely self promote. You have to bluntly tell your boss
| the work you accomplished especially if it's work that's
| getting attention. But that's because this is a big part of
| work. We're trying to give more responsibility to people who
| are achieving things in the work place. It's relevant.
|
| But bringing those things up at a BBQ or while golfing just
| seems like an attempt to agrandize yourself. Those are
| supposed to be egalitarian social situations. Your work
| accomplishments have little value there. Unless you want to
| live in the god awful world of that HBO show "Succession".
| paulpauper wrote:
| Muhc of the low-hanging fruit was picked in the 20th century.
| Every major branch of physics and engineering came out or was
| developed out of that century. now it's so much more
| theoretical and complicated and abstract in trying to tie the
| loose ends of the 20th century discoveries. As well as making
| incremental improvements.
| eternalban wrote:
| This is seriously short changing the giants of 19th century.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Or, perhaps, someday in the 31st century, they'll be amazed
| at our startling lack of progress in the 21st century before
| the cascade of incredible breakthroughs in the years
| following. Who knows, really, what the "low hanging fruit" on
| the grand scale of things are.
| [deleted]
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I've always had my eye out for time travelers from our future
| (I've had my eye out for UFOs as well, with about the same rate
| of success). It sounds like Bardeen could make the short list.
|
| To this point I had been focusing on Edwin Howard Armstrong....
|
| ;-)
| dokem wrote:
| John von Neumann definitely comes to mind. He was jokingly
| suspected to be an alien by his world-class intellectual peers.
| [deleted]
| newsbinator wrote:
| What would be some good ways to distinguish a time traveler
| from a top-0.01% individual (of whom there are a million people
| on the planet)?
| wcarss wrote:
| Having fun with this:
|
| The elsewhere-mentioned "not making a big deal out of your
| success" might be a reasonable filter, because while a time
| traveler might almost unavoidably produce surprising
| advancements, they also wouldn't necessarily try to draw
| attention to themselves.
|
| You know, lest they fall awry of any wandering time cops.
|
| (Maybe not even to _hide_ from them per se, given that for
| the hypothetical fun of it, we believe _we_ could find them,
| but just to avoid some kind of prime-directive-rule against
| egregious self-enrichment, i.e. a "no playing god" kind of
| thing.)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| _The Man Who Fell To Earth_.
| touisteur wrote:
| Or 'Mother of Learning'.
| andi999 wrote:
| Winning the lottery to get clean funds.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I guess I'm too stupid to imagine that even the top 0.01% of
| individuals could think of some of the really out-of-left-
| field ideas.
|
| The invention of Calculus might be another. That must have
| really made waves in the press. You know, when two time
| travelers set out to "invent Calculus" and by some
| unexplained coincidence they go back to roughly the same time
| in history. I mean, how does that happen?
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| If you read some older textbooks calculus is explained in a
| more intuitive way, to where you could see how someone like
| Newton might've arrived at it geometrically. Mathematics
| has gotten increasingly formalized/rigorized, which has
| trickled down into the teaching of calculus, at the expense
| of obscuring the origin of some of the ideas.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| It depends very much on how you define "calculus".
|
| If it's just a question of the fundamental theorem of
| calculus, then people like Isaac Barrow had already
| noticed that integration and differentiation were in some
| sense inverse operations, Fermat provided evidence of
| this by calculating integrals of polynomials, and I'm
| sure others did as well.
|
| But they did not supply a clear statement of a theorem
| with an accompanying proof, I believe mostly because of a
| lack of proper definition of the derivative, which was
| provided by Fermat, and almost immediately this was what
| Newton needed to prove exactly how differentiation and
| integration were related.
|
| I think it's no accident that once Fermat's definition
| (really, his _method_ ) of finding tangents was widely
| publicized, both Leibniz and Newton came up with the
| fundamental theorem. It was "hanging in the air", as all
| the pieces were on the table.
|
| Newton was not shy in crediting Fermat for giving him the
| definition he required.
|
| Math has many examples where the real breakthrough is
| identifying the precise definition of something that can
| be useful to form proofs. Once you have that, a flurry
| activity results in many proofs by other mathematicians.
| Cauchy's definition of limit triggered many results in
| analysis. Galois's discovery of a group or Enrico Betti's
| formulation of topology are other examples.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > Newton might've arrived at it geometrically
|
| That's funny, because calculus is derived from
| calculating the area under a curve. :)
| evanb wrote:
| There's a [perhaps apocryphal?] story about Onsager
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Onsager standing up at a
| conference and saying to someone discussing super conductivity,
| "No no no you're off by a factor of two!"
|
| "A factor of 2?"
|
| "Yes, definitely."
|
| He couldn't explain the factor two under further questioning.
| It turns out he was exactly right, there is a factor of 2 that
| arises from the fact that to superconduct electrons form Cooper
| pairs. [Aside: Actually, related to Bardeen, since Cooper
| pairing was first really well explained by the BCS theory!]
|
| Onsager also had some calculational techniques nobody else
| understood; he could calculate statistical mechanics results in
| ways that really seemed alien at the time. He was understood to
| be completely right, years later; his method was similar to
| Feynman diagrams.
|
| When we were told these stories by my stat mech professor
| during my PhD, the [tongue-in-cheek] end of the story was "The
| only reasonable explanation is that Onsager was sent back in
| time."
| N1H1L wrote:
| Leonardo Da Vinci then?
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