Marshall Nicholas Rosenbluth (5 February 1927 – 28 September 2003) was an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
plasma physicist and member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
, and member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
. In 1997 he was awarded the
National Medal of Science for discoveries in controlled thermonuclear fusion, contributions to
plasma physics, and work in computational
statistical mechanics. He was also a recipient of the
E.O. Lawrence Prize (1964), the
Albert Einstein Award
The Albert Einstein Award (sometimes mistakenly called the ''Albert Einstein Medal'' because it was accompanied with a gold medal) was an award in theoretical physics, given periodically from 1951 to 1979, that was established to recognize high ac ...
(1967), the
James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1976), the
Enrico Fermi Award (1985), and the
Hannes Alfvén Prize
The Hannes Alfvén Prize is a prize established by the European Physical Society (EPS) Plasma Physics Division in 2000. The Prize is awarded annually by the European Physical Society at the EPS Conference on Plasma Physics for outstanding work in t ...
(2002).
Key scientific contributions
During his first post-doctoral position at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
(1949–1950), he derived the ''Rosenbluth formula'', which was the basis of the analysis used by
Robert Hofstadter in his Nobel prize-winning experimental investigation of
electron scattering. Hofstadter refers to this in his 1961
Nobel Lecture: "This behavior can be understood in terms of the theoretical scattering law developed by M. Rosenbluth in 1950".
In 1953, Rosenbluth derived the
Metropolis algorithm
A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications.
A big c ...
, based on generating a
Markov chain which sampled fluid configurations according to the
Boltzmann distribution. This algorithm was first presented in the paper "
Equation of State Calculations by Fast Computing Machines", coauthored with his wife
Arianna Rosenbluth (who wrote the first computer program to implement the method),
Nicholas Metropolis,
Augusta H. Teller and
Edward Teller. This now-famous paper was cited in ''Computing in Science and Engineering'' as being among the top 10 algorithms having the "greatest influence on the development and practice of science and engineering in the 20th century." He and Arianna subsequently introduced the configurational-bias Monte Carlo method for simulating polymers.
By the late 1950s, Rosenbluth turned his attention to the burgeoning discipline of plasma physics and quickly laid the foundation for many avenues of research in the field, particularly the theory of
plasma instabilities
The stability of a plasma is an important consideration in the study of plasma physics. When a system containing a plasma is at equilibrium, it is possible for certain parts of the plasma to be disturbed by small perturbative forces acting on it ...
. Although he continued to work on plasma physics for the remainder of his career, he often made forays into other fields. For example, around 1980, he and coworkers produced a detailed analysis of the
free electron laser, indicating how its spectral intensity can be optimized. He maintained a high productivity rate throughout his entire career. Indeed, only a few years before his death, Rosenbluth discovered the existence of residual flows (so-called ''Rosenbluth-Hinton flows''), a key result for understanding turbulence in
tokamaks.
Early years
Rosenbluth was born into a Jewish family and graduated from
Stuyvesant High School
, motto_translation = For knowledge and wisdom
, address = 345 Chambers Street
, city = New York
, state = New York
, zipcode = 10282
, country ...
in 1942. He did his undergraduate study at Harvard, graduating in 1946 (B.S.,
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
), despite also serving in the
U.S. Navy (1944–46) during this period. He received his Ph.D. in 1949 from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
with
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" an ...
. In 1950,
Edward Teller, considered the father of the
hydrogen bomb, recruited Rosenbluth to work at
Los Alamos. Rosenbluth maintained this position until 1956. The research he conducted at Los Alamos led to the development of the H-bomb.
Additional information
Upon his retirement, he took on the responsibility of chief scientist of the Central Team for the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) until 1999. Rosenbluth also served as a member of the
JASON Defense Advisory Group.
Rosenbluth was affectionately known as the ''Pope of Plasma Physics'' in reference to his deep understanding of the field.
[Kim A. McDonald]
Nuclear Fusion Pioneer At UC San Diego Dies At 76
, obituary at the University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...
website. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
Notes
References
* J.W. Van Dam (Ed), ''From Particles to Plasmas: Lectures Honoring Marshall N. Rosenbluth'',
Addison Wesley
Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles through ...
(1989) .
External links
1994 Audio Interview with Marshall Rosenbluth by Richard RhodesVoices of the Manhattan Project
MSS 670
Special Collections & Archives UC San Diego Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenbluth, Marshall
1927 births
2003 deaths
American nuclear physicists
Enrico Fermi Award recipients
Harvard University alumni
Institute for Advanced Study faculty
Jewish American physicists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Monte Carlo methodologists
National Medal of Science laureates
Princeton University faculty
University of Chicago alumni
Stanford University faculty
Stuyvesant High School alumni
University of California, San Diego faculty
Members of JASON (advisory group)
American plasma physicists
Scientists from New York (state)
Fellows of the American Physical Society
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews
Members of the American Philosophical Society