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John N. Bahcall
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John N. Bahcall
John Norris Bahcall (December 30, 1934 – August 17, 2005) was an American astrophysicist and the Richard Black Professor for Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was known for a wide range of contributions to solar, galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, including the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope, and his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Bahcall was born into a Jewish family in Shreveport, Louisiana on December 30, 1934, and would later describe an early aspiration to become a Reform rabbi. He did not take science classes at high school. In high school he was a state tennis champion and a national debate champion (1952).
Bahcall began his university studies at Louisiana State University as a philosophy student on a tennis scholarship, where he considered pursuing the rabbinate. At the end of his freshman year, he transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, still studying philosophy. He took his first physics class to fulfill a graduation science requirement, later saying:
"It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but I fell in love with science. I was thrilled by the fact that by knowing physics you could figure out how real things worked, like sunsets and airplanes, and that after a while everyone agreed on what was the right answer to a question."
Bahcall switched majors to physics, and graduated with an AB in Physics from Berkeley in 1956. He obtained his MS in physics in 1957 from the University of Chicago and his PhD in physics from Harvard University in 1961.
He spent a year as a research fellow in physics with Emil Konopinski at Indiana University. From 1962 to 1970, he worked with a group led by William Fowler at the Kellogg Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, first as a research fellow and later as an assistant and associate professor.
Bahcall joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey in 1968 becoming a professor of natural sciences in 1971 and the Richard Black Professor of Natural Sciences in 1997.
Bahcall became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1976.
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John N. Bahcall
John Norris Bahcall (December 30, 1934 – August 17, 2005) was an American astrophysicist and the Richard Black Professor for Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was known for a wide range of contributions to solar, galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, including the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope, and his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Bahcall was born into a Jewish family in Shreveport, Louisiana on December 30, 1934, and would later describe an early aspiration to become a Reform rabbi. He did not take science classes at high school. In high school he was a state tennis champion and a national debate champion (1952).
Bahcall began his university studies at Louisiana State University as a philosophy student on a tennis scholarship, where he considered pursuing the rabbinate. At the end of his freshman year, he transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, still studying philosophy. He took his first physics class to fulfill a graduation science requirement, later saying:
"It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but I fell in love with science. I was thrilled by the fact that by knowing physics you could figure out how real things worked, like sunsets and airplanes, and that after a while everyone agreed on what was the right answer to a question."
Bahcall switched majors to physics, and graduated with an AB in Physics from Berkeley in 1956. He obtained his MS in physics in 1957 from the University of Chicago and his PhD in physics from Harvard University in 1961.
He spent a year as a research fellow in physics with Emil Konopinski at Indiana University. From 1962 to 1970, he worked with a group led by William Fowler at the Kellogg Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, first as a research fellow and later as an assistant and associate professor.
Bahcall joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey in 1968 becoming a professor of natural sciences in 1971 and the Richard Black Professor of Natural Sciences in 1997.
Bahcall became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1976.
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