James Bruce French (1921–2002) was a Canadian and American theoretical physicist, specializing in nuclear physics. J. Bruce French received in 1942 his bachelor's degree in physics from Dalhousie University and served during WWII in the

Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; , ''MRC'') is the Navy, naval force of Canada. The navy is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of February 2024, the RCN operates 12 s, 12 s, 4 s, 4 s, 8 s, and several auxiliary ...

, performing acoustical studies related to antisubmarine warfare. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1948 with a thesis on relativistic calculation of the

Lamb shift In physics, the Lamb shift, named after Willis Lamb, is an anomalous difference in energy between two electron orbitals in a hydrogen atom. The difference was not predicted by theory and it cannot be derived from the Dirac equation, which pre ...

. From 1948 to 1950 French was a research associate at MIT. At the University of Rochester, he was from 1950 to 1951 a research fellow, from 1951 to 1956 an assistant professor, from 1956 to 1960 an associate professor, and from 1960 to 1992 a full professor, retiring in 1992 as professor emeritus. He did pioneering research on

deuteron Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two Stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium atomic nucleus, nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and ...

stripping ( direct reactions), the

nuclear shell model In nuclear physics, atomic physics, and nuclear chemistry, the nuclear shell model utilizes the Pauli exclusion principle to model the structure of atomic nuclei in terms of energy levels. The first shell model was proposed by Dmitri Ivanenk ...

, and statistical spectroscopy. He and his student Malcolm H. Macfarlane (1933–2008) published in 1960 the extensive review article ''Stripping reactions and the structure of light and intermediate nuclei'', which has been cited over 700 times. In the last stage of his career he did research on "development and application of

central limit theorem In probability theory, the central limit theorem (CLT) states that, under appropriate conditions, the Probability distribution, distribution of a normalized version of the sample mean converges to a Normal distribution#Standard normal distributi ...

s on groups for studying the "smoothed" behavior of complicated quantum systems; and extended random-matrix and related methods for studying

quantum chaos Quantum chaos is a branch of physics focused on how chaotic classical dynamical systems can be described in terms of quantum theory. The primary question that quantum chaos seeks to answer is: "What is the relationship between quantum mechanics ...

." He was a co-author of a highly cited (2700 citations) review article on random-matrix physics, published in 1981. J. Bruce French was the author or co-author of about 130 research articles and reviews. He was the thesis supervisor for 23 doctoral students. In April 1993 the University of Rochester held a symposium in his honor. He was predeceased by his wife and survived by a daughter and two sons.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:French, James Bruce American nuclear physicists Canadian nuclear physicists Dalhousie University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of Rochester faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society 1921 births 2002 deaths Canadian emigrants to the United States