William Conyers Herring (November 15, 1914 – July 23, 2009) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. He was a professor of applied physics at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and the Wolf Prize in Physics recipient in 1984/5.

Academic career

Conyers Herring completed his Ph.D. in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1937, submitting a dissertation entitled ''On Energy Coincidences in the Theory of Brillouin Zones'' under the direction of

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul Wigner (, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of th ...

. In 1946, he joined the technical staff of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he remained until 1978. Then, he joined the faculty at

Contributions

Conyers Herring played a major role in the development of solid state physics. He laid the foundations of band structure calculations of metals and semiconductors, culminating in the discovery of the Orthogonalized Plane Wave Method (O.P.W.) in 1940. He was years ahead of his time in this contribution. A great deal of modern

solid state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state p ...

as produced today stems from this original and early paper. In 1937, he predicted the existence of Weyl semimetal, materials that display Weyl quasiparticles, which were experimentally demonstrated in 2015. His influence on the development of solid state physics extends to a deep understanding of many facets such as surface physics, of thermionic emission, of transport phenomena in semiconductors and of collective excitations in solids such as spin waves. He created the

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

division at Bell Telephone Laboratory. Because of this, the total research effort at this institution and brought about much of the most original research in condensed matter physics during the latter half of the 20th century. He has also been most influential in promoting international cooperation among scientists and through his character and his personal example, he has exemplified a somewhat unattainable ideal of how a research scholar in any field should operate. He has contributed to religion and science discussions. He has stated about

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

that "Things such as truth, goodness, even happiness, are achievable by virtue of a force that is always present, in the here and now and available to me personally".

Brain box

Herring was famously well-read in the physics literature, and summarized references he found valuable on index cards. He stored these cards, cataloged by topic, in a black suitcase that he referred to as his "brain box". Started in his student days, the brain box grew throughout his career, eventually containing 15,000 index cards with over 100,000 references. A project to digitize the brain box was undertaken by Robert B. Laughlin after Herring's death.

Awards and honors

In June 1954 he was one of twenty scientists under the age of forty identified by '' Fortune Magazine'' as "top young scientists in U. S. universities and industry". In 1984/85 Conyers Herring was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics along with Philippe Nozieres for "their major contributions to the fundamental theory of solids, especially of the behaviour of electrons in metals". In 1980 he was awarded the

NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing is awarded by the United States National Academy of Sciences, U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) "to recognize authors whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a signific ...

from the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, 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 ...

References

External links

*
Profile of Conyers Herring

The contributions of Conyers Herring

* ttp://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4666_1.html Oral History interview transcript with Conyers Herring 23 July 1974, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
Stanford Obituary of Conyers HerringNational Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herring, Conyer 1914 births 2009 deaths Stanford University Department of Applied Physics faculty Princeton University alumni Wolf Prize in Physics laureates Scientists at Bell Labs Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century American physicists American condensed matter physicists People from Schenectady County, New York Scientists from New York (state) Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners