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The Chemical Educator

ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)

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Abstract Volume 24 (2019) pp 142-143

John Robert Schrieffer (1931–2019), An Obituary-Tribute

George B. Kauffman*

Department of Chemistry, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740-8034, georgek@mail.fresnostate.edu

Published: 4 December 2019

Abstract. Prominent theoretical physicist John Robert (“Bob”) Schrieffer died on July 27, 2019 at the age of 88. His work with physicists John Bardeen (1908–1991) and Leon Cooper (b. 1930) earned them the 1972 Nobel Prize in physics for the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity, which solved one of the chief scientific problems of the early 20^th century. Superconductivity was first observed in 1911, and all of the greatest theorists tried to explain it in the decades following the invention of quantum mechanics. During his last years he suffered from bipolar disorder.

Key Words: Chemistry and History; Nobel Prize in Physics; Superconductivity; Solid State Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Florida State University; University of Illinois; Niels Bohr Institute; University of Birmingham; University of Chicago; University of Pennsylvania; University of California, Santa Barbara; National Science Foundation; Quantum Mechanics; Solitons

(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: georgek@mail.fresnostate.edu)

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