Norman Myles Kroll
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Norman Myles Kroll (6 April 1922,
Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...
– 8 August 2004, La Jolla, California) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his pioneering work in QED. Kroll received in 1942 his bachelor's degree from
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
after 2 years of study, having studied from 1938 to 1940 at
Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...
in
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
. During WW II he did theoretical radar research (
magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field while ...
theory), during 1943–1945, at Columbia under the supervision of
Willis Lamb Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (; July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1955 "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum." The Nobel Committee that year awarded hal ...
and I. I. Rabi. In 1943 Kroll received his master's degree and in 1948 his PhD from Columbia University with Lamb as thesis advisor. In the academic year 1948–1949 he was a visiting scholar at the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...
, where he, with
Robert Karplus Robert Karplus (February 23, 1927 – March 20, 1990) was a theoretical physicist and leader in the field of science education. Early life Robert Karplus was born in Vienna, where he lived until the German occupation of Austria in 1938. He emigrate ...
, calculated the QED two-loop contributions for the
anomalous magnetic moment In quantum electrodynamics, the anomalous magnetic moment of a particle is a contribution of effects of quantum mechanics, expressed by Feynman diagrams with loops, to the magnetic moment of that particle. (The ''magnetic moment'', also called '' ...
of the electron. Kroll was, with Lamb, one of the first (including
Victor Weisskopf Victor Frederick "Viki" Weisskopf (also spelled Viktor; September 19, 1908 – April 22, 2002) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Boh ...
and his student Bruce French) to calculate the relativistic Lamb shift (after
Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel ...
made a rough, non-relativistic estimate for it). This work was part of the pioneering efforts that led to the QED formalism developed by
Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfl ...
,
Julian Schwinger Julian Seymour Schwinger (; February 12, 1918 – July 16, 1994) was a Nobel Prize winning American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on quantum electrodynamics (QED), in particular for developing a relativistically invariant ...
, and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Kroll became at Columbia an assistant professor in 1949 and was promoted to associate professor and then full professor before leaving for
UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
. In the academic year 1955–1956 he was a Sloan Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow at the University of Rome. He was elected in 1974 to the National Academy of Sciences. He was a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Among his doctoral students are Robert Mills and
Eyvind Wichmann Eyvind Hugo Wichmann (May 30, 1928 – February 16, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist. Life Wichmann studied in Finland (Institute of Technology, Helsinki, diploma 1950) and finished his master studies 1953 at the Columbia University, ...
. In 1960–1981 he was a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group. Upon his death, Kroll was survived by his wife, four children, and nine grandchildren.


Selected publications

*with Lamb: *with Karplus: *with Malvin A. Ruderman: *with Walter Wada: *with Eyvind H. Wichmann: * *with
Tsung-Dao Lee Tsung-Dao Lee (; born November 24, 1926) is a Chinese-American physicist, known for his work on parity violation, the Lee–Yang theorem, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion (RHIC) physics, nontopological solitons, and soliton star ...
and
Bruno Zumino Bruno Zumino (28 April 1923 − 21 June 2014) was an Italian theoretical physicist and faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his DSc degree from the University of Rome in 1945. He was renowned for his rigorous p ...
: *with Kenneth M. Watson: *with Marvin Douglas: *with Philip L. Morton and Marshall N. Rosenbluth:


References


External links


Oral history interview with Norman Myles Kroll on 28 June 1986, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
- interview conducted in La Jolla, California {{DEFAULTSORT:Kroll, Norman Myles 1922 births 2004 deaths 20th-century American physicists Theoretical physicists Columbia University alumni Columbia University faculty University of California, San Diego faculty Sloan Research Fellows American people of German descent Fellows of the American Physical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Rice University alumni