Sidney Drell

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Sidney Drell
Born (1926-09-13)September 13, 1926
Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S.
Died December 21, 2016(2016-12-21) (aged 90)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Nationality American
Fields Physics
Institutions Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Alma mater University of Illinois
Thesis Part I Magnetic internal conversion coefficient Part II Electrostatic scattering of neutrons Part III Anomalous magnetic moments of nucleons (1949)
Doctoral advisor Sidney Dancoff
Doctoral students Roscoe Giles
Heinz Pagels
Notable awards E. O. Lawrence Award (1972)
Pomeranchuk Prize (1998)
Enrico Fermi Award (2000)
National Medal of Science (2011)

Sidney David Drell (September 13, 1926 – December 21, 2016) was an American theoretical physicist and arms control expert. At the time of his death, he was professor emeritus at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Drell was a noted contributor in the fields of quantum electrodynamics and high-energy particle physics. The Drell–Yan process is partially named for him.

Biography[edit]

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey,[1] Drell graduated from Atlantic City High School.[2] He earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University in 1946, having been admitted at the age of 16.[1] He was awarded a masters in physics in 1947 and received his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1949. He co-authored the textbooks Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Relativistic Quantum Fields with James Bjorken. Drell was active as a scientific advisor to the U.S. government, and was a founding member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group. He was also on the board of directors of Los Alamos National Security, the company that operates the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was an expert in the field of nuclear arms control and cofounder of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, now the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He was a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and an accomplished violinist. He was a trustee Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

He was the father of Persis Drell, former head of SLAC national accelerator lab, and current dean of the Stanford University School of Engineering, Joanna Drell, Associate Professor of History at the University of Richmond, and Daniel Drell, a program officer at the U.S. Department of Energy. On November 7, 2016, Persis Drell was named the next Provost of Stanford University, to take office in February 2017. Sidney Drell died in December 2016 at his home in Palo Alto, California at the age of 90.[3]

Awards and honors[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Grimes, William. "Sidney Drell, Who Advised Presidents on Nuclear Weapons, Dies at 90", The New York Times, December 22, 2016. Accessed December 22, 2016. "Sidney David Drell was born on Sept. 13, 1926, in Atlantic City, to Jewish immigrants from the Russian empire."
  2. ^ Aaserud, Finn. Oral History Interviews: Sidney Drell, American Institute of Physics, July 1, 1986. Accessed December 22, 2016. "Graduated from Atlantic City High School, and all the places in between are on the Monopoly board."
  3. ^ http://news.stanford.edu/2016/12/22/sidney-drell-theoretical-physicist-national-security-expert-stanford-dies-90/
  4. ^ "Drell, Sidney D.". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved June 3, 2011. 
  5. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter D" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 3, 2011. 
  6. ^ The Heinz Awards, Sidney Drell profile

External links[edit]

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