John Hasbrouck Van Vleck

Career and research

He joined the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in 1923, then moved to the University of Wisconsin before settling at Harvard. He also earned Honorary D. Sc., or D. Honoris Causa, degree from Wesleyan University in 1936.

J. H. Van Vleck established the fundamentals of the quantum mechanical theory of magnetism, crystal field theory and ligand field theory (chemical bonding in metal complexes). He is regarded as the Father of Modern Magnetism.

During World War II, J. H. Van Vleck worked on radar at the MIT Radiation Lab. He was half time at the Radiation Lab and half time on the staff at Harvard. He showed that at about 1.25-centimeter wavelength water molecules in the atmosphere would lead to troublesome absorption and that at 0.5-centimeter wavelength there would be a similar absorption by oxygen molecules. This was to have important consequences not just for military (and civil) radar systems but later for the new science of radioastronomy.

J. H. Van Vleck participated in the Manhattan Project. In June 1942, J. Robert Oppenheimer held a summer study for confirming the concept and feasibility of a nuclear weapon at the University of California, Berkeley. Eight theoretical scientists, including J. H. Van Vleck, attended it. From July to September, the theoretical study group examined and developed the principles of atomic bomb design.

J. H. Van Vleck's theoretical work led to the establishment of the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory. He also served on the Los Alamos Review committee in 1943. The committee, established by General Leslie Groves, also consisted of W. K. Lewis of MIT, Chairman; E. L. Rose, of Jones & Lamson; E. B. Wilson of Harvard; and Richard C. Tolman, Vice Chairman of NDRC. The committee's important contribution (originating with Rose) was a reduction in the size of the firing gun for the Little Boy atomic bomb, a concept that eliminated additional design weight and sped up production of the bomb for its eventual release over Hiroshima. However, it was not employed for the Fat Man bomb at Nagasaki, which relied on implosion of a plutonium shell to reach critical mass.

The philosopher and historian of science Thomas Kuhn completed a Ph.D. in physics under Van Vleck's supervision at Harvard.

From 1951, Van Vleck was Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard. He concurrently held the first deanship of Harvard's Division of Engineering and Applied Physics until 1957.

In 1961–62 he was George Eastman Visiting Professor at University of Oxford and held a professorship at Balliol College.

In 1950 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1966 and the Lorentz Medal in 1974. For his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electrons in magnetic solids, Van Vleck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1977, along with Philip W. Anderson and Sir Nevill Mott. Van Vleck transformations, Van Vleck paramagnetism and Van Vleck formula are named after him.

Personal life and death

While a professor at the University of Minnesota, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck met Abigail Pearson, a student at the university, and later married her on June 10, 1927. They inherited from Van Vleck's father a collection of Japanese woodblock prints, known as the E. B. Van Vleck Collection, which they donated to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin in 1980s. He was related to Tom Van Vleck, a software engineer who co-authored an early email program.

Van Vleck died on October 27, 1980, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery.